On his way to Columbus Exchange Club’s weekly meeting Thursday, John Almond was convinced in his “heart of hearts” that he was going to see his cousin, Thomas “Tango” Moore, a retired Marine Corps general, speak on a military-centered topic.
Almond told The Dispatch that when he arrived, he saw many people he recognized seated at various tables, most of them volunteers from Dream Center Golden Triangle, the organization Almond founded five years ago as a mission to help the less fortunate.
“I knew something was up then,” he said.
After lunch kicked off, Exchange Club past president Jimmy Woodruff came to the podium and said Moore was “off the hook” and would not be speaking.
Almond didn’t know it, but he was the featured speaker.
The club selected Almond as the 51st recipient of the Book of Golden Deeds Award. The award is given out yearly to “dedicated volunteers who give endless hours of their time and talent towards making their communities better places to live,” Woodruff said.
The recipient’s name is kept secret until the day it is awarded.
Ralph Null, a member of the award’s selection committee, spoke after Woodruff and said Almond’s life was filled with “detours, serendipities, setbacks, relocations, revelations, losses, and reincarnations that have shaped the world in which they served.”
He said Almond’s journey began more than 50 years ago inside a Volkswagen bus on the west coast, looking for his calling.
When Almond realized he was receiving the award, he turned in his seat to his wife, Brenda, in shock.
“I was overwhelmed that this was happening to me,” Almond told The Dispatch. “My family — my precious wife, Brenda — kept this 100% secret. … I was emotionally really struck with it as Ralph began to share the nice things that they said about me.”
“We are proud that we can honor a man with a servant’s heart, love for God and his human creation and a willingness to answer the call to, ‘Love thy neighbor as himself,’” Null said.
Almond lived in Arizona for more than 45 years and had many careers, from working with the rehabilitation service Global Teen Challenge, to working in the mining sector, real estate and auto sales.
He finally found his path in ministry and moved to Columbus in 2008, where he already had family ties. A decade later, he started hearing about the Dream Center, a nationwide faith-based organization that seeks to aid the underprivileged.
Almond was compelled by the organization’s motto, “Find a need and fill it. Find a hurt and heal it.”
Motivated by the Dream Center’s efforts, he founded the Golden Triangle’s chapter. The organization rallies the resources of area churches to support impoverished families and the homeless.
“One of the mottos of the Dream Center is, ‘We get to do this,’” he told the packed Exchange Club audience. “We get to serve. There’s no ‘got to’ about this. It’s a ‘get to.’ I only wish I would have discovered the joy of service and serving Christ as a younger man.”
One of the center’s initiatives is “Bedz4Kidz,” a program that has built and distributed 1,379 beds to children in need across the region.
“Each bed represents a child,” Almond told The Dispatch. “In all of those cases, the need is really genuine.”
He recalled one story of arriving at a home where four children had no bed and were instead sharing one couch to sleep on.
“We’re trying to hold these families together through this effort,” he said. “It’s more than getting a child off the floor. That’s important. It’s so they can have an opportunity for a good education. They can’t sleep.”
He added that other issues like food insecurity, poverty and homelessness are “unacceptable.” “We can do better,” he said. “And I think it’s up to the church. Not a particular church or denomination. But the church — cross-denomination, cross-culturally — coming together. We are a powerful force if we’ll just work together.”
Dream Center Golden Triangle is headquartered in the old Bryan Foods building on East Church Hill Road. It’s adding a new food pantry program, DC Feeds, sometime this year.
Kevin Edwards is news editor and reports on Starkville and Oktibbeha County government.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 43 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
