For 10 years, the Potter's House functioned as an informal resource center in a neighborhood where people are often stretched too thin.
It is also where John and Pansy Young, who ran the ministry, live.
Working from 1218 25th St., the Youngs gave food to the hungry, tutoring help to the young and solace to those who merely needed a quiet place to get out of life's storm.
The ministry closed last week, after running afoul of city zoning and building regulations. And many of the neighbors are asking what they will do without its services.
Susan Brooks-Moore was riding down 25th Street last year when she noticed a sign for the Potter's House in front of a neat white bungalow.
She learned that the Potter's House offered an after-school tutoring program and she enrolled her daughter, Tameia, 7, who is a student at Rural Hall Elementary. Brooks-Moore said she has been happy with the results.
"I've gotten letters from her school on how much better she's reading," Brooks-Moore said.
Brooks-Moore said she is concerned about her daughter's school work since the Potter's House shut down. Her schedule as an in-home nurse doesn't allow her to read to her daughter every night.
She is also concerned about the many other people who will not receive help from an organization that many of her neighbors have come to depend on.
"It's a refuge. It's a place where people can seek when they're in trouble," Brooks-Moore said. "There's no stipulation to what the trouble is."
The Potter's House has attracted help from a cross section of the community.
On a recent afternoon, 20 people gathered to speak with a reporter about the good the ministry has done. They were area business owners, neighbors who had received help and representatives from such churches as First Baptist on Fifth Street and St. Stephen Missionary Baptist Church.
They are frustrated that the city inspectors seem to overlook the drug dealing and decrepit housing in the neighborhood, but they shut down one of the few forces for good in the neighborhood.
Vivian Burke, the council member in the northeast ward, said that she, too, is frustrated by the problems in the neighborhood and that she is aware of the good work the Youngs have done.
But her hands are tied, she said.
"It really bothered me, and if I could have done anything to stop them from bothering the Potter's House, I would," she said.
In October, a complaint about the Potter's House food-distribution program prompted a city inspector's visit. Pansy Young said she has been told that someone complained about tables on the sidewalk from which people were picking up free food. The city would not tell her who made the complaint.
The inspector had a number of questions about whether the ministry could operate in a residential neighborhood, said Monty Sprinkle, a senior zoning inspector with the city-county inspections division.
The Potter's House is considered a church, Sprinkle said, and it is allowed to operate in a residential neighborhood. But it must have a zoning and building permit. In order to receive such a permit, the Youngs would need to submit site plans and architectural plans, as well as pass building codes, fire codes and comply with regulations for parking, handicapped access and landscaping.
Because the Youngs live there, and use the house as a church, they would also need to install a sprinkler system, Sprinkle said. That can be costly.
Pansy Young said she has heard that costs for the upgrade could run as high as $10,000.
Miller and Alice Allen own the house where the Youngs operate their ministry. They sent the Youngs a letter last week asking them to shut down the Potter's House and to begin using the dwelling only as their home.
Miller Allen said that in meeting with the city, he became concerned about the costs of bringing the house into compliance with the regulations that would allow it to operate as a ministry. He was particularly worried about the costs to install a sprinkler system.
"I don't fight city hall," he said. "I'm a law-abiding citizen."
John Young said he understands that he must comply with the rules.
"There is a moral side to this and all the good we do in the community," he said, "but that doesn't mitigate in any way the legal side."
He said he hopes that the Potter's House might find a new way or a new location in which to carry on its mission.
Todd Hutchins, a member of River Oaks Community Church, said that he and a group of other Potter's House supporters have been working to find suitable property for the ministry. If necessary, he said, the group would help raise money to retrofit a building for them.
The Youngs opened Potter's House in 1998.
John Young, a Winston-Salem police officer from 1982 to 1987, said he opened the ministry after he decided that he wanted to work with people before they were arrested.
The Youngs left their home in the North Hills neighborhood and moved to East 25th Street because they thought that becoming part of the neighborhood was crucial to their efforts.
They have run their ministry on a shoestring.
Their staff is all volunteer, Young said. He and his wife live on the rent they receive from their former home and from his preaching at churches.
Young has a degree from the Wake Forest University Divinity School, and he said he would like to get a job or start a multicultural church in the city.
He is hoping that he and his wife can find another place in the same neighborhood in which to operate their ministry, but he has no idea how long that will take.
Supporters of the ministry said that it is impossible to measure all of the good that it has done.
Nicole Sawyer, 19, first came to the Potter's House as a student in the after-school program and now returns to help children with their homework. She said that the after-school program, and the Youngs, have been a good influence in her life.
"It was fun. It kept me busy," she said. "They're just fun to be around -- like my own family. They kept me out of trouble."
