Community Centers
Meeting Physical, Emotional and Spiritual Needs
 Two Salvation Army community centers provide a meaningful support base for low-income neighborhoods and offer a lifeline to residents of all ages living nearby.
The community centers offer educational, recreational and spiritual resources, as well as a range of social services to provide a holistic ministry to meet physical, emotional and spiritual needs.
The centers include computer labs, music labs, libraries, game rooms, dining rooms, meeting areas, gymnasiums, food pantries, a chapel, as well as classrooms for Sunday School, Bible study, after-school programs and summer day camp.
An Emphasis On Education
 Education is a key component in helping people transition out of a poverty environment. Libraries, computer labs and after-school tutoring are among the educational opportunities The Salvation Army provides at its community centers.
Youth Programs
After-School Programs
  During the school year, single, working-poor parents have an important choice to make: find affordable child-care for their kids during the after-school hours, or choose to be jobless in order to care for their children.
The latter is an almost certain guarantee of continuing to live in poverty. The only remaining choice seems a financial impossibility, however, through The Salvation Army's After School programs, children of low-income parents have a safe place to go each day when school is out.
The Salvation Army's community center in the East Lake neighborhood provides a variety of educational and recreational activities for kids to participate in each weekday afternoon. Children may remain at the center as late as 8 pm to allow parents time to get off work and drive to pick them up.
Location, Phone & Hours:
2140 East 28th Street
Chattanooga TN 37407
423-698-4484
Monday – Saturday 3 - 8 pm
Athletic Programs
 At The Salvation Army, sports are about more than scoring touchdowns or getting a ball through a hoop. Youth athletic programs teach boys and girls valuable lessons about life.
In a short game of baseball, basketball or soccer, players encounter many of life's key ingredients: friendship and rivalry, bravery and fear, hard work and sloughing off, trusting and doubting, hanging tough and giving up, winning and losing.
Participants in organized athletic programs learn the meaning of integrity and fair play by being a part of a team and by competing against other teams. They learn there are rules to live by and consequences for breaking them. They learn how to win graciously, and how to lose without being crushed. They also learn that there are adults who care for them and who are willing to spend their time helping them to be better athletes and better people.
Young people can take these "lessons of the locker room" into their everyday lives and on into adulthood.
For some children in the inner-city, a coach might be the only person they know who is pointing the direction down the right road in life. Dedicated staff and volunteer coaches spend many nights and weekends in gymnasiums and on ball fields working with boys and girls from the at-risk neighborhoods near Salvation Army community centers.
The Salvation Army's subsidized athletic programs give parents living below the poverty level the opportunity for their children to participate in organized sports just like other kids.
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