CUMMING, Ga. — It’s a crazy time at No Longer Bound in Cumming. The non-profit organization, which helps men recover from addiction, is dealing with the effects of the coronavirus.
“Everything has changed really, except for our mission,” executive director Edward Bailey said. “No Longer Bound exists to create and foster an environment to rescue addicts, regenerate men, and reconcile families.”
Unfortunately, he said, the mission is the only thing that has not been affected by COVID-19 which recently forced management to close the campus and one of the main revenue streams.
“We closed our thrift stores two days ago,” Bailey said. “Of all of our budget, half of that revenue comes from our industries. So closing down two thrift stores really starts to hurt us pretty immediately.”
He said they’ve also had to delay the opening of a new 56-bed dormitory that was scheduled to open next month after Forsyth County declared a state of emergency and closed many of the government buildings.
“We've been able to kind of continue a little bit of construction, but we had to cancel the ribbon-cutting,” Bailey said. “The county is not coming out and doing inspections. The electrical company can't come out and hook it up anymore. So it's a big challenge for us. Plus, you can't have a big ribbon-cutting with a bunch of community members coming out.”
When entering campus, No Longer Bound visitors are now greeted by a sign that reads “DUE TO COVID-19 CAMPUS IS CLOSED TO VISITORS.”
“I'm working remotely,” Carol Smith, the director of development, said. “Everybody that’s administrative at No Longer Bound has been asked to work remotely so that we keep the campus safe. So we're trying to cut down on people coming and going.”
Despite everything, Smith said morale on campus is high.
“The men on our campus are very wise,” she said. “They are self-reflecting every single day, journaling every single morning, they are in prayer all the time. They are in classes and in therapy processing all the time. So I almost feel like that campus is so rich in wisdom for the world right now. I feel like God is going to use this difficult time for good, for the nation, for us individually, and for us as an organization. The dorms are going to be great when they open. We're going to have a lot of new beds and we're going to be ready to help more people than ever before.”
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