Florine Wimberly will move into a brand-new apartment soon and she can't wait. There's just one problem.

"What am I going to do with my hats when I move?" she wonders. "I have quite a few of them."

"I'm a hat freak too,'' said Ellawee Drake Coleman, who already has put her hats into storage. "We're known for wearing hats here,'' she said about the congregation at Mount Pilgrim Church at Hoag and Dorr streets in Central Toledo.

But the hats are a minor complication in the larger picture. The women are delighted that they will be among the first residents at Pilgrim Port, believed to be the first senior citizens' accommodations ever built by an African-American church in Toledo.

The 50-unit, $5 million apartment building on Angola Road was dedicated yesterday.

The public-housing project was the inspiration of the Rev. Raymond Bishop, Jr., pastor of Mount Pilgrim Church.

At 10:30 yesterday morning he was wrapping up the first of two morning services, with the choir singing an upbeat last song to the accompaniment of a polished band. A video camera recorded the service.

Afterward, a parade of mostly younger people streams out of the sanctuary. A lot of the ladies, especially the older ones, wear hats.

That this relatively young congregation supported a cost-ly endeavor to provide housing for the elderly was no surprise to the 46-year-old pastor, who has led this congregation 16 years.

"We all could relate. We're all going to be old. We all hope to become old. That's our ambition." He laughed.

"They just made sacrifices. Some were small - the majority were small,'' he said, but together they raised the money to build the one-bedroom apartments.

"Most can't maintain their homes. There are a lot of widowed persons, men and women, who struggle, particularly in the inner city. They don't have the income to keep up with the upkeep,'' he said. "They need smaller places."

The mission to create Pilgrim Port began about six or seven years ago when the Rev. Bishop noticed a tremendous need among the elderly for affordable housing.

The condition of some neighborhoods was another issue.

"Some of them were living in situations where they were surrounded by drug dealers and undesirables that occupied the same apartment buildings. That became a little unsafe,'' he said.

To make the vision come true, the Rev. Bishop asked his congregation to give. There were no bake sales or car washes. It was tithing and a little extra, pure and simple.

At the same time, the pastor said he trimmed expenses a bit to make it all work.

He also began lobbying.

"That took us on a three or four-year odyssey to track everybody down, to make applications and be denied, to go through the whole process of talking to people, sitting out in the foyers of their offices, and all the stuff that you do, the 'Come see me later and we'll see,' and all that."

The office of U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) and Mayor Carty Finkbeiner's administration took an interest. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ponied up $3.5 million toward the construction. The city of Toledo pitched in $300,000.

The Mount Pilgrim congregation was unable to find an inner-city location big enough to accommodate its plans, so it settled on purchasing about 18 acres on the south end of the city - big enough for a proposed second phase of two-bedroom units suitable for couples.

Mrs. Wimberly, 76, who lives only blocks from the church, said she doesn't mind moving across town to the new units. She's been a member of Mount Pilgrim since she moved to Toledo from Louisville with her late husband in 1954.

"I want to get out there," she said. "I have a house, but it's too much for me, and so I'm by myself. My health is not as good as it used to be," she said.

"I've had furnaces go out. That last one was really bad. The furnace went out a couple of times."

Mrs. Coleman, 86, said the whole congregation "thought it was a wonderful idea" when the Rev. Bishop proposed creating the housing.

"He has taken us to greater heights than we have ever known," she said.

The location doesn't concern her either. She's never driven, but the church is committed to providing transportation not only to and from church, but for shopping expeditions as well, the pastor said.

In recent years, Mrs. Coleman, a Toledo native, shared an apartment with her daughter. When her daughter died of breast cancer in the spring, she moved in with a grandson.

"I've always been independent," said Mrs. Coleman, a Mount Pilgrim member since 1939. "I am eager, looking forward to being there."

Contact Jenni Laidman at:

jenni@theblade.com

or 419-724-6507.

First Published September 10, 2007, 10:05 a.m.