History

a brief history of cgm

Common Ground Montgomery was started in 2006. Bryan Kelly moved to Montgomery in June, and Bryan started volunteer coaching for Carver High School. By the fall of that year there were Wednesday night Bible studies with the football team.

Kevin King joined CGM in January 2007. Near the end of that year, both the Kelly and the King families had moved into houses on Westcott Street to live in the community they would serve. 

2007 saw Bryan helping coach the baseball team at Carver High School, as well as CGM hosting the More Than Conquerors Westside Baseball Camp. The year finished out with the first CGM Christmas Store for the community.

The summer of 2008 saw the first boys and girls camps, as well as the start of the after school program at the McIntyre and Carver Community Center with approximately 40 students.

In the spring of 2009, the building at 1516 Mobile Road was purchased and renovations began. Full-time staff were hired to operate the youth programs. The separate boys and girls camps were combined to form the summer camp program, which saw 80 children from the community attend. Our first college-aged interns were hired to help run the 8-week summer camp. (This internship would later become the summer resident mission.)

By September, CGM moved into their newly renovated building, and the after school program saw attendance jump from 40 to approximately 100 students.

2009 also saw the spin-off of House to House, the adult mentoring and housing program, to its own 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. As more semesters in the after school program and more summer camps passed, CGM finally had a gym completed in 2012. The mentoring program was formalized in September 2014, under Kevin King.

A counseling partnership was set up in 2015, allowing for community members, staff, and others to meet with a certified counselor at CGM. CGM also helped start Valiant Cross Academy - an all-boys Christian school - providing classroom space and van rides for the beginning of their inaugural year before they finally moved to their location in downtown Montgomery.

In August of 2016, the CGM Pre-K was opened with part-time hours, and by November it was open full-time.

In the summer of 2017, Bryan Kelly stepped down as executive director for a year to focus on fundraising and vision casting, and was succeeded by Justin Hampton. 2017 also saw former CGM intern Lee Mayhall create Common Ground Shoals, the first Common Ground affiliate program.

Bryan Kelly returned to the executive director role in September 2018. October 2018 saw the spin-off of the Mercy House to its own 501(c)(3) non-profit, a primarily emergency food bank and clothes closet that also had facilities for homeless persons to bathe as well as wash clothes and search for employment.

In June 2019, Kevin King left to work full-time at his own non-profit, The King’s Canvas, a “creative placemaking” space providing for under-developed and underexposed artists in West Montgomery.

January 2020 saw former CGM summer intern Clint Free start Common Ground Troy in Troy, Alabama.

COVID-19

March 2020 saw the global outbreak of COVID-19. CGM, following along with state mandates, shut down all programs. A shortened, reduced-attendance Summer Program (following CDC recommended guidelines) took place starting in June. Because Montgomery Public Schools were not returning to in-classroom learning in the first nine weeks of the fall, CGM became a virtual school site for 30 students to attend from 8 AM - noon. Breakfast and lunch were provided, as well as backup Chromebooks for students that forgot their school-issued Chromebooks. For the second nine weeks as MPS returned back to in-classroom learning, CGM switched back to its regular After School Program, modified to adhere to CDC guidelines maintaining social distancing.

Eventually CGM returned back to a virtual program site through 2021, forgoing the After School Program, as MPS switched back and forth between virtual and in-person learning. CGM’s opting for only a virtual program site was to provide more consistency for families in Washington Park.

Post COVID

In 2022, CGM returned to its regularly scheduled after school and summer camp programs, and brought attendance numbers back up to half of pre-COVID numbers; equating to around 60-70 students, not including the Pre-K, for 2022. In January 2023, CGM and the MAP/ Mercy House partnered up to try out a combined After School Program, bringing enrollment just over a 100 students. This also brought in several additional teachers and support staff as well as an education consultant to help counter the rising occurrence of students not being at grade level due to all the disruptions from COVID.

BIG CHANGES

In June 2023 MAP/ Mercy House assumed leadership and direction of both the after school and summer programs located at 1516 Mobile Road, renaming them the MAP Youth Navigation Program and Summer Enrichment Program respectively, and leased the 1516 Mobile Road location from CGM. At the same time, CGM began it’s capital campaign to fully renovate it’s camp ground location outside Verbena, Alabama, with the plan that in three years time it would be fully operational in a year-round capacity. This new camp would be called Onawa (which means to “live awake” —- in reference to living awake to the reality of God and the dignity God has placed in us all).