As the sun arcs higher into the noon hour on a midsummer day, painters brush a new coat of white onto a handsome two-story house. They’re among dozens of volunteers readying the 103-year-old property for its new owner: Saline Area Social Service.

Sometime early next year, the nonprofit agency will move into its new headquarters at 224 W. Michigan Ave., more than tripling the space it has to help serve the community’s neediest.

The house and surrounding parcel of property were donated to SASS last spring by the Saint Joseph Mercy Health System. St. Joe’s had owned the house for twenty-five years and leased it out for much of the last decade to a health care agency for migrant workers. It has been vacant for the last several years.

“Ultimately, we decided to gift it instead of lease it to [SASS] because we really wanted to create a sustainable future for them and to have them know what their costs would be and have them be in control of their direction,” says Robin Damschroder, chief operating officer for the health system.

“The new, more visible location will probably allow us to serve 25 to 30 percent more families because people will be able to find us, and we’re hoping that contributions will increase too because people will know where we are,” says SASS executive director Jamail Aikens. Thanks to volunteer labor, he estimates that it will cost just $50,000 to add a fifteen- to twenty-car parking lot, and a rear door and delivery dock. They’ll also put on a new roof, and redo the house’s interior. The lion’s share–$40,000–will come from federal community development block grant funds. Aikens hopes to raise the rest through a fundraising campaign this fall.

Volunteers have been at work all summer. Local church groups tore out an old driveway and helped with yard cleanup and landscaping. Carpenters are doing the interior work, and a volunteer keeps the lawn neatly trimmed.

With just four staff members, SASS relies on volunteers for its daily operations. They help an average of 300 people each week obtain groceries and prescriptions, pay for utilities, and avoid eviction. SASS also assists eligible people in applying for Medicaid, connects clients with job interviews, and runs an annual holiday program that provides hundreds of Christmas presents to area families. They’ll outfit 130 Saline schoolchildren with new shoes this fall.

Many people who have been helped by SASS end up volunteering there. Lisa Porzondek, forty-seven, moved to Saline from the Detroit area fourteen years ago and at first needed a lot of assistance. She’s been helped with rent, utility shutoffs, food, glasses, and prescription co-pays. “This is the first time in my life I have all of my basic needs met,” says Porzondek, who is on Social Security disability and works two part-time jobs. Grateful for the SASS lifeline, she’s volunteered with the group for thirteen years.

Saline mayor Brian Marl helped facilitate the first meeting between the health system and SASS. “Saline Area Social Service is an important and extremely valued organization,” he says. “We as a community will be judged based on the way we treat the most vulnerable, the victimized, and the struggling in our community, and I think that Saline Area Social Service does a marvelous job in providing support for individuals and families but, of equal importance, helping them gain some level of independence and autonomy.”