Welcome to Fall! As the weather has been getting chillier over the last few weeks in Allentown, PA, the Community Building Center has been busier than ever. We have been continuing to enjoy having a space to call our own and have been dreaming with our community about how we can use it to serve each other in the best way possible. Right now, that looks like a continued partnership with St. Luke’s Parish Nurses as well as LVHN’s Street Medicine on a weekly basis to care for each other’s health needs. It also looks like therapeutic circles twice a week led by our Community Chaplain and continued relationships with community volunteers who lead games, crafts and even weaving! At our core, RCI continues to put nurturing relationships FIRST and this core has given us the chance to be recognized as a safe place for many of our marginalized friends.
In addition to our day to day, we have been able to host some exciting events over the month. On October 17th, LVHN Street Medicine hosted a Narcan Training for our staff, volunteers and community members. 25+ people joined us to learn about the opioid epidemic in the Lehigh Valley and practice administering Narcan (an opioid reversal medication) in a safe manner. What an awesome privilege to be able to do outreach while supporting our community!
On October 19th our friends at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown supported us in hosting a Fall Festival! We loved sharing a meal with them while playing games, decorating pumpkins and overall getting ready for the holiday season together. It felt good to be able to meet each other and share stories with people of all different ages and backgrounds.
After our Fall Festival came trick or treat! A few of our Ripple Church and RCI members came to the porch to hand out treats from 6-8pm. We went through several bags of candy and even got to start handing out chocolate covered pretzels to the parents and guardians of the local trick or treaters. Some of our favorite costumes were bees, sharks, monsters and even a few princesses!
Finally, last week we have welcomed partners from 2 congregations in Mexico who have come to the Center to learn more about RCI and the work that we do here at the Center. The hope is that they will be able to use these learnings and knowledge to take back to their own community where they are looking to grow a similar program to our own. We have enjoyed food, conversation and especially singing with this crew and we already miss them and hope they are able to visit again soon!