As SHAPE Community Center begins to rebuild after an accidental electrical fire recently devastated its Nia Becnel Family Center at 3815 Live Oak St., leaders called on their most important stakeholders — the community — to help them imagine the new SHAPE.
“The future of SHAPE is in the hands of the community,” said Deloyd Parker, co-founder and executive director,
Nearly 60 community members gathered at the SHAPE Harambee Administration building at 3903 Almeda Road this week for a fire restoration townhall meeting as the Third Ward organization moves forward with its “Together Building Back Better” restoration campaign. The meeting provided a space for attendees to brainstorm and share visions for the new, re-envisioned SHAPE. The townhall began with a 15-minute meditation session before groups put their ideas to paper. Attendees were encouraged to draw out their ideas using crayons and markers, a more creative approach on the advice of Erin McClarty, a social impact architect they tapped to help facilitate the activity.
“We could not have done anything we’ve done without each other,” Parker said Wednesday evening to a packed room. “We are a team, a family. … We need each other. We really do, more now than ever.”
Suggestions spanned from adding a gym, a library, a storefront, coworking space and a recreation center. Others wanted more practical additions, such as more parking spaces and an elevator for ADA compliance.
“It just goes to show how committed people are to this space and this vision,” said McClarty, who grew up in Alief but occasionally frequented SHAPE as a child.
SHAPE, which stands for “Self Help for African People through Education,” aims to improve the quality of life for people of African descent through programs and activities, with an emphasis on unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith. Parker, along with student volunteers from Texas Southern University and the University of Houston, founded SHAPE on June 1, 1969. Rev. Lawson of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, Parker’s pastor at the time, had made a call for Parker to start an organization that empowers families.
Since its inception, SHAPE has served families for decades in the greater Houston area with dozens of programs, such as after-school childcare, summer youth programs, parenting programs, an Elders Institute of Wisdom group, and free legal assistance programs. Its Marcos Mazula Technology Center has offered essential resources, like laptops, copiers, printers, and fax machines that community members can use. Its In-SHAPE Café has also served as an incubator fostering entrepreneurships by providing affordable rent and utilities to food businesses.
Folade Madzimoyo, a Third Ward resident of almost 14 years and participant in various SHAPE programs, expressed enthusiasm for the community townhall, noting that its hands-on nature exceeded her expectations.
“It was empowering,” she said. “I didn’t know that we would be so much a part of the visionizing process for the future of SHAPE and honestly I can’t see it any other way because that’s the SHAPE way. SHAPE is community, it is a collective vision; there’s no I in SHAPE.”
She said it was important to show her support for an organization that has given so much to her family for years, and she wanted to be a part of the process of sustaining the organization that represents Black pride, connection and “good ol’ fashioned Black love.”
Parker has started to get some rest after struggling with sleep since the fire on Jan. 19. He’s still dealing with the trauma of nearly losing a building he dedicated almost 56 years of his life to.
“This was a feel-good meeting and a motivational meeting because we haven’t stopped doing what SHAPE center does,” he said. “We’re just doing it in a different way right now in a different location.”
Many of the suggestions he said are not realistic in the short-term because they’ll require more time and money.
Parker said insurance will cover roughly $1.2 million but it will not be enough to cover the roughly $500,000 estimated damage the fire caused and rebuild a bigger, better SHAPE. The organization is seeking $2.5 million to fulfill its mission. Since the fire, they’ve raised $150,000 and are accepting monetary donations either electronically, via mail, or in-person, and in-kind donations such as goods, supplies, toiletries and volunteer/contractor services.
“We’re not going to be able to satisfy everybody,” Parker said. “But we want to get a taste of what each of them want in the restoration process.”
SHAPE volunteers also provided an update on the construction, stating that the building had been cleaned, but it would likely take another six months before they could return and continue serving the community. The current primary objective is to get back into the building as quickly as possible. They are also working on a long-term goal of obtaining access to the surrounding land to create a campus with multiple buildings.
That part Parker said he could visualize, since some of the buildings that surround the Live Oak facility are abandoned.
“We want to be able to build back better,” Parker said. “The main thing is having a solid space in place that could be the nucleus of that campus.”
Parker said his vision is to have Live Oak serve as that historical nucleus of a campus that will be inclusive of all the aspects of the community from educational to social and economical.
Restoration and sustainability are the most important factors right now, Parker said. SHAPE’s main objective is to get its administration building into compliance to restart its after-school enrichment program, which has been unable to convene since the fire.
A core group of stakeholders from SHAPE’s board of directors and staff will take all the ideas from the townhall into consideration and decide what’s feasible, and what aligns to SHAPE’s overall goal and objective, Parker said.
“They don’t want to do something that’s not doable,” he said. “But at the same time we don’t want to spend more time than necessary. Time could build an organization or destroy an organization meaning if we sit on it too long. You don’t want to stop the heart from beating.”
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