'Amazing Grace has to continue and will continue': Wolverhampton charity which lost everything in devastating factory blaze determined to rebuild
The chief executive of a charity dedicated to helping vulnerable and homeless people has detailed the devastating losses it has suffered following a factory fire.
Merabelle Nahbila has been taking stock of what Amazing Grace International has lost following the fire which ripped through the factory unit on the IMEX Business Park and also left offices, units and storage areas in Moorfield Works on Upper Villiers Street in varying states of ruin.
Amazing Grace International, which as part of its offering runs holiday clubs and a Christmas hamper outreach programme, is based on the second flood of Moorfield Works. While the hall only suffered water damage, the charity lost its storage room, with around £30,000 of clothes and other stock destroyed in the fire.
The charity had been home to an office, a hall, a conference room and a worship room and Ms Nahbila said it had been a thriving community hub for people in Wolverhampton.
She said: "We would have worship every Friday and we also used to have different conferences in the conference room.
"We would also set up the hall for children's activities, so they would have table tennis in here, arts and crafts, singing and parades, so they could do so much and there were so many activities going on here.
"Members of the community and other groups would hire the hall as well as I belong to a group with of CICs and charities where we try to support each other, so they would use the community hall for their activities and we would have joint meetings that I would host because I had the space."
Ms Nahbila said that in addition to the loss of the stock, the charity had also lost a lot of equipment and other items from the hall which she believed had been stolen, including £15,000 in cash.
She said: "This money was from a pool by the church and was to support Christians to get a mortgage, so we had collected it and were going to pay it in after the Christmas period due to needing each member to get a receipt, but then this happened.
"As well as that, we have had all the speakers in the worship room taken, which were brand new, a Yamaha keyboard, amplifiers, a laptop from my office, along with a printer and carton of t-shirts and microphones.
"We also didn't have insurance, because the issue was that we had put in for insurance three weeks ago and because I included fire, they were saying that it would take five weeks before the policy would be established - but then the fire happened."
Ms Nahbila said that while she had found the situation very difficult to take at times, she was thankful for the community she was in and the support and prayers she had received, and said that she would work to make sure the charity could start again, including starting up a Go FundMe page.
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She said: "I'm someone who is very positive and the way I started Amazing Grace wasn't out of a design, but more out of a passion and a vision to help people.
"I do believe that we are going to continue, but I know it will take a while for us to come back to where we are, although we are able to use the Bob Jones Centre at the moment.
"The truth about it is that Amazing Grace has to continue and Amazing Grace will continue."
