By Melanie Patterson

The North Jefferson News



An upcoming “taste and see” event is geared toward helping women get their lives back on track.

Alabama Teen Challenge (ATC) women’s camp in Maytown is hosting the event on June 14 at Garden-dale First Baptist Church.

The guest entertainer will be George Weeks and friends.

The taste and see night is based on Psalm 34:8, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Guests will get to taste desserts from local and Birmingham restaurants, and see how lives are being changed through the Teen Challenge ministry, according to Neeley Vance, who is helping organize the event.

Local restaurants Chick-fil-A and Jim ’N Nicks, as well as O’Carrs, Village Tavern and other restaurants, are donating desserts for the night.

Alabama Teen Challenge is a ministry that helps men and women with substance abuse addictions.

It is a 12-month discipleship program in which the students live at the ATC facility.

“This is a ministry that sees that basically Jesus is the only answer,” said Vance. “That’s why it’s so different from other rehab programs.”

Vance has worked at Gardendale First Baptist Church for five years as a student associate. She will begin working full-time for ATC in June.

The ATC women’s camp can accommodate up to 30 residents.

The women who are working their way through the program have done most of the work for the upcoming taste and see program.

Vance said they contacted restaurants for the donations of desserts and were helping with publicity for the event.

The women will also decorate the fellowship hall, will be serving at the event and some will give their testimonies.

“These women have taken the wrong path, but they have decided it’s time to get their lives straightened out,” said Vance. “This is one way we, the local church, can serve.”

Vance said that ATC is much more than a rehab program.

“This program helps them detox, but it also helps them change their lives and get on the journey of learning healthy ways to cope with life,” she said.

Tickets for the June 14 event are $5 and can be bought at the Gardendale First Baptist Church bookstore or at the door.

The program starts at 6:30 p.m. in the church fellowship hall.

For more information, call Suzanne Smith at 780-2950 or visit www.alabamateenchallenge.org.