Nancy Bryan, RCPCH executive director, said that the new facility will increase the number of people served as well as safety for those victims and the staff.

TIFTON — After 16 years of working towards this goal, Ruth’s Cottage broke ground on a new facility on Dec. 10.

“This is a very special day for Ruth’s Cottage and The Patticake House,” said Jim Laycock, president of Ruth’s Cottage and The Patticake House (RCPCH). “It’s a day that’s been a long time coming.”

The new facility will serve victims of sexual assault and domestic violence from the four counties in the Tift Judicial Circuit: Tift, Irwin, Turner and Worth. The support of those counties was instrumental in making Tift County’s application for the Community Development Block Grant competitive, according to Lynn Lovett, chairperson of the capital campaign that is raising money in support of the new facility.

RCPCH has been operating since 2002 and has occupied four locations around Tift County, according to Laycock.

“And this is going to be the nicest one,” he said.

Nancy Bryan, RCPCH executive director, said that this facility is the culmination of a dream many years in the making.

“The good news is that this building is going up,” she said. “It’s going to enable us to house more people in a really comfortable, awesome place where they’ll not only be safe butthey’ll be comfortable and happy.”

She added that the staff that serve clients will also benefit from the added security of the new facility as they do their work and that the facility will have a room for educating the public about domestic violence.

“The work’s not done though,” Bryant said. “The building’s going to go up, but it’s going to take a lot to maintain that building. As we double the number of people that we serve, that’s double the amount of cost to do so.”

Bryant said that they are selling bricks in honor or memory of people to serve as a walkway to the facility, as well as benches, to build up funds for operations and maintenance.

Pastor Dan Eidson offered the invocation at the groundbreaking.

“We’re doing what God has told us to do, we’re loving people,” he said. “That’s what Ruth’s Cottage and The Patticake House does.”

Tift County Commission Chairman Grady Thompson said that the $750,000 Community Development Block Grant from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs will be a benefit to the region.

“Anytime you can do a multi-county (project) to help multi-county people, it’s a good thing,” Thompson  said.

Mayor Julie Smith said that everyone who has worked to make the facility possible should be proud.

“I found a quote from Rochelle Goodrich, the author of “Flame Dragons,’” said Smith. “She says, and I think this is appropriate for today: ‘Lift up your eyes and see the good in the world, for we are a people with an amazing capacity to do good. And if only the minority, and maybe we are the minority, but if only the minority choose to exercise this capacity to the smallest degree, oh the wondrous and the sweet deeds performed at but a few hands.’ I think that’s what we’re seeing the start of today.”