Nuevo Caminos / New Paths
2021-22: InnerCHANGE East Harlem NYC was launched in January 2019 by a family who had relocated from England back in 2014. The team is committed to Jesus-centered companionship alongside those struggling with the tough challenges of loneliness, loss of direction, isolation, and poor health. This project focuses on 284 residents of a public housing apartment building, Gaylord White Houses (GWH) in New York’s East Harlem neighborhood. The grant will be allocated to building relationships with seniors at GWH to provide support, healthy activities and learning opportunities as well as constructing a new garden to serve as a space for community building.
2022-23: This renewal grant builds on the slow work of accompaniment being done with seniors at GWH. Called “Nuevos Caminos / New Paths,” the project is doing innovative community-building where on-site prayer groups are as likely to happen as bus trips and home visits. The groups engage with themes such as “how to build up a habit of gratitude?”, “what can be done to cultivate empathy?”, “why declutter your apartment?”, “how to find ways to “join back in” with the neighbors out there, who pass by the building in a tremendous rush?”. The hope is to cultivate intentional homemaking and community-building alongside residents who live together within the same four walls.
Congregational and Community grants provide support for urban pastors, churches, faith-based community organizations, and theological institutions to share resources, ideas, and practices for life-giving ministry in cities across North America. Typically, we invite those who have not previously had access to resources or grant funding.
