With generosity from AdventHealth Apopka as well as Brasfield & Gorrie, the company that built the hospital, 2,000 square feet of an Apopka church have been renovated at no cost to the church.
New Hope Missionary Baptist Church’s upgraded rooms included the computer lab, additional tutoring room and office conference room, food pantry, clothing room, and substance abuse room and recovery. New air conditioning units were also installed.
The remodeled rooms, named the H.L. Dericho Educational Wing after longtime New Hope Pastor H.L. Dericho, were unveiled at a ribbon-cutting event hosted by the Apopka Area Chamber of Commerce.
Brasfield & Gorrie completed the renovations in three months, finishing in November 2019. The construction firm built the current AdventHealth Apopka facility on Ocoee-Apopka Road.
Giving New Hope Missionary Baptist Church remodeled space fits within AdventHealth’s promise to help people in the community feel whole, said AdventHealth Apopka CEO Tim Clark, who said he and New Hope Associate Pastor Alexander Smith had previously connected over the church’s several community outreach efforts.
Through efforts of AdventHealth chaplain and New Hope Pastor Vicmael Arroyo, City Commissioner Alexander Smith, the church’s associate pastor, invited Clark to tour the church in 2019. It was on this tour that the church and the hospital representatives discussed upgrading the computer lab with better equipment and Wi-Fi access.
Clark later returned to Smith saying AdventHealth could refurbish the computer lab. The CEO then reached out to Brasfield & Gorrie, the contractor for the new Advent-Health campus on Ocoee-Apopka Road, and asked project manager Mike Sells if they could work on the computer lab.
After Sells toured the church, his company decided to remodel not only the computer lab but multiple rooms for the church as well.
New Hope Missionary Baptist Church is located at 927 S. Central Ave., Apopka.
The full story begins on page 1A of the Friday, January 31, edition of The Apopka Chief. Subscribe today!
