In 1950, Dr. Jarrett Aycock founded the Kansas City Rescue Mission. Jarrette had been an alcoholic. He’d wandered the country for years, hopping freight trains, gambling and drinking, every once in a while, taking on the responsibility of a job.
During one of his sober seasons and while holding down a respectable job, young Aycock walked along ‘skid row’ in Los Angeles California. Passing the Union Rescue Mission the doorkeeper invited him in to attend the evening service. He accepted.
“The place was filled with derelicts, drunks, dope addicts, and all the odds and ends of skid row.” Aycock later reported. “As I sat there looking them over, I got to thinking that I had been like them before and that I would be like them again unless I could somehow get free of all the old habits and the ceaseless downward pull that had plagued my life for years.”
The speaker that evening was Mel Trotter, who himself had been a hopeless drunk and on his way to commit suicide when he met the Savior at a mission in Chicago. Trotter became an evangelist, and for the next forty years, established over sixty rescue missions throughout the country.
Jarrette Aycock listened as Mel Trotter shared the story about how Jesus had changed his life. Then others shared their stories. “Some of them seemed to be telling my story.” Aycock later reported. “They told of years of wandering, bound in sin and habits, loss of friends, loved ones, and a disappointed, brokenhearted mother.”
Following the testimonies an invitation was given and Jarrette Aycock made a difficult but very necessary decision.
“It took a tremendous effort,” he acknowledged, "because before we are ready to ask Jesus to give us a new life, we really have to be sick of the old one. We have to know that the person we have been so pleased with and so proud of for so many years, the person we have pampered and almost ruined, isn’t really any good at all and won’t be any good until we let Jesus Christ rule that life. That isn’t an easy decision. But the results of it are all glorious. I know because I made the decision myself that night and Christ has never failed me.”
At the altar of a rescue mission, Jarrette Aycock walked away from his past and into a hope-filled future. After assisting the superintendent of another mission for a short time, he began studying for the ministry. Then in 1942, following 32 years as an evangelist, now Dr. Jarrette Aycock, became Superintendent of the Kansas City District Church of the Nazarene. Committed to help others as he had been helped, Dr. Aycock founded the Kansas City Rescue Mission in 1950.From the outset, it was anything but smooth sailing.
Originally located at 916 East 12th Street, the Mission moved four times during its first five years of operation. In 1962 the building at 523 Walnut Street was purchased and became the Mission’s home for the next twenty-eight years.
Leadership also changed much, at least 11 times during the Mission’s first thirty-five years.
In 1985, current director, Joe Colaizzi, began his leadership of the Kansas City Rescue Mission. Two years later in his annual report Joe highlighted the increasing physical and moral deterioration of the City Market neighborhood that had been KCRM’s home for many years. He called KCRM “the only light in our dark little corner of the world.”
In the late 1980’s city leaders, fully aware of the blight of the City Market area, began to implement their plan to redevelop the area, which did not include a rescue mission. An almost penniless KCRM was looking for a new home . . . by faith!
As a result of much prayer, door after door began to open for the Mission. The City of Kansas City purchased our old property giving us money enough to place a healthy down payment on a two building complex at 1520 Cherry Street. The seller then gave us two additional buildings. Our request for funding to complete the purchase and renovate the new facility began to bear fruit also. In fact, one request for $30,000 produced surprising results . . . a gift of $50,000! In an 18 month period we had raised enough to qualify for a final grant of $125,000. This in turn rendered our new facility, valued at $1,200,000, debt free.
During the first 10 months of renovation, truly a time of great need, churches, organizations, corporations, businesses and hundreds of individuals contributed expertise, labor, materials and supplies enough to complete the renovation of the first building. During the initial service in our new chapel, Mayor Emmanuel Cleaver declared November 14, 1991 “Kansas City Rescue Mission Day” in Kansas City as we dedicated the new facility to the Lord’s use. Thus, the Mission resumed its ministry of Relief to the poor and homeless in a new state-of-the-art environment.
Completion and dedication of building two occurred in July, 1993. This building provided facilities and living quarters for our growing residential Recovery ministry, the Christian Development Program (CDP), designed to assist up to 18 men as they overcome the debilitating effects of dysfunction and sin in whatever form.
In August 2000, renovation of the final two buildings was completed. This space accommodates up to 18 men as they prepare for Re-Entry into society from our Transitional Living Center. The space also includes a recreational area, classroom, offices, maintenance shop and a future job training center.
In October 2000, KCRM looked back on 50 years of service to Kansas City’s poor and homeless. As we begin this new millennium we look forward to shining the light of hope far into the future.