A downtown church building that once supported parishioners spiritually will soon be remodeled in order to serve the physical, mental and emotional wellbeing of public safety workers across Wichita and Sedgwick County.
City and county law enforcement officials said Thursday that the Wichita Metro Crime Commission has purchased what was once the First United Methodist Church’s Building B, on the southwest corner of 3rd and Topeka. Construction will soon start to transform it into the $5 million privately funded Pinnacle First Responder Health and Wellness Center, a premiere “one-stop-shop,” Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter said, to serve and provide support to more than 2,000 city and county public safety employees, from first responders and coroners to forensic scientists, district attorneys and more.
“We’re all kind of in the same boat when it comes to experiences that they’ve seen that can affect them both mentally … (and) physically,” Easter said. “It’s just a case out in the streets, but it touches all these entities. Some of those things are extremely tragic to deal with all the way through the system, and so it gives everybody the opportunity to seek help when they need it, hopefully to stay in shape, and then other services that the center will provide.”…