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Began in 1994 by Founder and CEO, Gwen Woody
By 1998, the organization acquired its IRS 501©3 status and officially became Coastal Rescue Mission, Inc.
1999, Coastal Rescue Mission met the needs of scores of homeless in the surrounding area, and networked with other agencies
providing services. This work evolved into a food pantry to help needy families and attracted many volunteers.
2000, CRM rented a facility for the purpose of distributing food and for housing homeless families.
2002, CRM rented the much-needed warehouse to accommodate food and a house to shelter the many homeless women and their
children in the area.
2005, CRM received a grant to purchase a small rural church where it currently has the shelter program.
2006, Current Status of Programs; Food distribution is Serving 1500 people monthly.
Women’s shelter accommodates nine people per night.
2007, expansion plans to establish The Community Care Center.
CRM will implement Phase II so families can get back into the community, to seek employment and to take the steps necessary for re-
establishing an independent life.
Goal projected for 2008:
Starting a Building Campaign, to build a new Shelter that will house 20 beds. Then CRM will have a total of 48 beds.
Founder and CEO of Coastal Rescue Mission
There's a strength and resilience in Gwen Woody you don't see in many people.
When she graduated from high school in Michigan, Gwen was offered a scholarship to a Christian college, but her parents wouldn't
allow her to accept it because they thought women belonged in the home. Instead she returned to her home state of North Carolina
where she married young and took a job as a cashier at an Ingle's Grocery. She had two children, but the marriage didn't last. When
her children became of school age, she went to college. Gwen and her second husband started a landscaping business that evolved into a
construction business. She went on to become a real estate broker and earned degrees in business and hotel/restraunt management. She
and her husband owned five companies before she started her own real estate company in Charlotte which she ran very successfully for
about 14 years.
"Then life kind of fell apart," says Woody. Doctors found an 11 pound malignant tumor in her chest that had grown around her lymph
nodes and clavicle. They predicted paralysis on her right side and death. At the same time, she was going through another painful
divorce and had to send her teen age son and daughter to live with her estranged husband because she was too sick to care for them.
She was also losing everything financially, everything she had worked so hard for. "At that point I didn't have the strength to care about
material things or finances," says Woody. "I had to focus on surviving. It was all sliding away, and I had to let it go." Her breast and
tumor were removed, and two weeks later, her ovaries were removed. Shortly there after she underwent four types of radiation and
chemotherapy daily for eight months. Her doctor advised her against joining a support group because she was already so positive and
strong. "I couldn't have carried anyone else's burdens," she adds.
A year after her diagnosis, a camping trailer was all she had left of her possessions. Gwen drove to Little River and set up that trailer. "In
my spirit I knew if I stayed in Charlotte or went back to Michigan, I would die and if I went to the beach, I would live." she says. "I
never accepted I was going to die. I never accepted God was done with me." It took about seven years for her to get her strength back.
She got her children back too, and then her daughter decided to go back to North Carolina to attend college.
One day Woody got a phone call. Her daughter had been rushed to the hospital. Doctors had to operate, and when they opened her up,
they discovered a tumor so pervasive and deadly, they simply closed up the incision and sent her home to die. She was gone by the time
she was 21.
"I was pretty beat up," Woody says. "You wonder, why did I live for this?". After much deliberation, she came up with an answer:
"God has a purpose for each and every one of us. I could have given up. It would have been a lot easier to have died than to have lived."
She started working on something and wasn't even sure what it was, but doors began to open in certain places at certain times. She
asked agencies what the need was in the city and kept getting the same answer: food. A second need was shelter.
As a result, in 1994 Gwen Woody started Coastal Rescue Mission which now, with the help of area churches, serves over 1,500 people
a month with food, shelter and counseling. The Loris warehouse serves as Thrift Store and food distribution. The Beautiful Gate
Shelter provides a safe haven for women and children. And The Coastal Care Center, located in the former Loris Presbyterian Church
building, will offer various counseling services for those in need. Gwen works on a volunteer basis and understands what its like to go
from a six figure income to a $4,000 a year income. The job is not easy, even stressful, but its a calling. "People have choices," she
says, "but when you are chosen, you don't have anywhere else to go." ~~
Privately funded by local churches, businesses, community organizations, and individuals of support.
