A Manatee County community resource center that aids the poor is experiencing a growth problem.

And not the good kind of growth problem.

The Mt. Carmel Community Center Resource Center is helping a growing number of people out of an aging facility that is too small.

The center, located in a former two-bedroom residence at 1314 Second Ave. West in Palmetto, serves about 85 people every day. Center officials are now looking for a larger facility.

The center, open for the past eight years, helps the community with food, job searches, computer literacy and getting GEDs. The cramped facility, stacked with canned goods and other foods, has little room to conduct its normal operations.

"We don’t have nowhere else to go but here," said Alphonso Carns, who uses the facility. "And they take good care of us and everybody gets along like family - a big family."

Center organizers, along with local church, civic and political leaders are seeking funding to buy a new facility or buy the current building and make it larger.

"We are impacting their lives today for self sufficiency and success tomorrow," said Executive Director Shirley Pearson. "That is our mission."  

Pearson said she plans on adding parenting and financial literacy classes, in Spanish and English, if the center is able to secure a larger space.

The center is planning to host fundraising events in the future.