Relief organization to get new warehouse

3/25/2008

One year after the organization's co-founder died from a heart attack, local charity ISOH/IMPACT will break ground on a $1 million expansion to double its relief efforts around the globe.

The new warehouse and headquarters - called the "Disaster Response Center" - will be located at Levis Commons in Perrysburg.

The organization was created in 1991 by the merger of two charities - Impact With God Crusades Inc. and International Services of Hope - and acts as a hub for local organizations to donate food and supplies for local, national, and international natural disasters.

In 2005, it distributed $10 million worth of supplies to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in the South and the tsunami in Asia.

But according to Linda Greene, president and chief executive officer of ISOH/IMPACT, the organization's 5,000-square-foot warehouse was limiting its donations.

"We are starting to turn people away because we don't have enough room to house the supplies that are needed," Mrs. Greene said. "We're going to be able to double the lives that we change with what we're doing."

The organization will have a groundbreaking at the site, 2100 South Wilkinson Way, on Thursday - one year, to the day, after the death of Mark Stanley Greene, the husband of Mrs. Greene and co-founder of the organization.

"This is a vision that my husband and I had," Mrs. Greene said. "He had been working on this project for about three years, and now it's actually coming to fruition."

The new 15,000-square-foot warehouse, complete with a loading dock, will cost about $1.133 million, and the organization has secured a $160,000 matching grant and $500,000 in smaller donations to help pay for the project.

Larry Dillin, developer of Levis Commons, donated one acre for the project, Mrs. Greene said.

She said a Web site would soon be online for contributors to make donations toward the project's remaining costs.

"We're trying to build this debt-free," Mrs. Greene said. "This is about the community investing in lives - locally, nationally, and internationally."

Despite the project, Mrs. Greene said the organization is still focused on its mission, and is currently distributing supplies to the victims of floods in Ohio and other parts of the Midwest.