*cino Work, Education, Hospitality, Leadership, People, Three Rivers

Apply now for our AmeriCorps VISTA positions!

*culture is not optional (*cino)/The Huss Project is now accepting applications for three full-time AmeriCorps VISTA positions; the deadline is very soon, so apply now! We’re looking for folks who will help us take our work to the next level in the areas of food systems, education, and economic development through the Huss Project, World Fare, and other partners in Three Rivers.

AmeriCorps VISTA

*culture is not optional runs the Huss Project, which is transforming a former elementary school in the rural city of Three Rivers, Michigan into a community hub for growing our capacity for imagination. For the next year, we are building on our efforts to develop a more resilient and just local food system in our rural city, growing our experiential learning opportunities on our urban farm, and expanding our focus to include transportation (specifically a community-run bike shop). We are hiring three positions this year: Farm Eduction Coordinator, Food Distribution Coordinator, and Events & Communications Coordinator. Huss is at the center of a multi-faceted, community-wide effort to strengthen local food systems while providing land-based education, particularly for low-income households and using universal design principles that improve the system for all. In the inner circle of the ecosystem is an urban farm, a neighborhood farmers market, and multiple food distribution programs. These entities are connected to numerous food producers, businesses, civic organizations, and social service agencies throughout the city. Our AmeriCorps VISTA project will help build the capacity for this system to meet the next level of its potential. Experience with activities like social research, community development, event planning, education, program development, volunteer coordination, permaculture design, food systems, non-profits … these are the types of things we’re looking for in people who will thrive collaborating at a high level with a grassroots org in a funky, small, Midwest city. We’re looking for people with solid enough experience to function as peer collaborators in creative design toward significant community outcomes, in a spirit of curiosity, joy, and accountability. Here are four words that are floating around for us at the moment as we search: compassion, collaboration, innovation, and detail-orientation. Visit our listing on the AmeriCorps site to submit your application. Applications are open until August 12, but we’re looking to fill these positions as soon as possible to allow our VISTAs to plan for an August 29 start date. Here are some more details:
  • Application deadline: August 12, 2022
  • Dates of service: August 29, 2022 to August 28, 2023
  • Weekly commitment: Full time, 40 hours per week
  • Compensation: living allowance (just over $12,000/year), plus educational award or end-of-service stipend and health insurance
  • Housing: Reduced-cost housing available ($250/mo. including utilities)
  • Other benefits
  • Apply here!
Thank you for your help in spreading the word and please let us know if you have any questions! We’re really looking forward to this next phase of our community’s work in Three Rivers.
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*cino Work, Hospitality, Leadership, People

Growing our community safely in a pandemic

In mid-March, as Michigan pulled together and hunkered down to slow the spread of the coronavirus, our *cino crew was watching and waiting to see how our plans to welcome new people into our community this spring might change. We had a couple from Vermont planning to move into our new caretaker’s house, and we anticipated hiring seven new AmeriCorps partners—three year-long VISTAs and four summer associates—with several of these folks moving into our community house. With everything changing so fast and a growing awareness that the situation would continue for many months, we had no idea what to expect.

We continued our recruiting and hiring processes and eventually, AmeriCorps confirmed our May 11 start date for our new VISTAs. We were super excited about the three folks who agreed to join us, but how could we form a new household safely? And what would we do about the summer folks starting June 1?

So we started gathering the best, most reliable information we could and came up with a plan that we feel very good about. Because we’re a very visible group of people and because we want to maintain a sense of transparency and accountability with our broader Three Rivers community, we want to lay out some of the details of our plan.

  • As of March 16, all members of *cino’s four community households began practicing self-isolation, with distancing and other safety practices for any essential trips outside the house.
  • Thanks to adaptations allowed by AmeriCorps, our *cino staff began working remotely and our weekly community meetings shifted to video. We pivoted our work to support the acute needs of our local community with resources like emergency assistance information and free vegetable seeds.
  • When Dan and Margaret traveled from Vermont and moved into the Huss Caretaker’s House in mid-April, we welcomed them from a distance with a housewarming gift and video gatherings, while they spent their first two weeks here in self-isolation.
  • Our May 8 going-away party for two of our community house residents was a multi-faceted, creatively-distanced affair, with ways to participate by mail, text, e-mail, drive/walk/bike-by, and video. (We heard from several folks that it was the best going-away party they’d ever “attended,” so those of us who are trying to figure out how to do grad parties, showers, and so on this spring and summer: it is possible!).
  • New AmeriCorps VISTAs moving into the community house on May 9 self-isolated for two weeks prior to moving into the house.
  • As of May 9, the *cino community house at 208 N. Main Street started a “reset,” with the new group of residents self-isolating together for two weeks to establish a new primary household. During this two weeks, we’re conducting an orientation program through video and outdoor, physically-distanced points of connection.
  • For the foreseeable future, any new residents of the community house will self-isolate for two weeks before joining the household.
  • Our summer work is shifting almost entirely to fresh food production and distribution, so labor will be outdoors as much as possible with collectively designed safety practices based on the relationships among the individuals working together.
  • We’re working on a visual model that will help us all understand how we relate to one another practically and emotionally to support one another’s physical health, as well as the health of our relationships.

So why are we sharing all of this? Well, one of the challenges of this time is managing our feelings of anxiety, fear, and judgment, no matter our opinion of the pandemic response. We see a group of people gathered outside a house, clearly not residents of the same household: are they blowing off the rules? We see someone wearing a mask driving alone in their car: are they just trying shame me for not wearing a mask on my walk? In a time of such remarkable instability and uncertainty, judgment is a natural impulse, but we can practice giving the benefit of the doubt, asking genuine questions, and offering transparency.

We want our neighbors to know without a doubt: our *cino community is taking this thing seriously in the interest of supporting the health of our vulnerable family members, the essential workers with whom we come into contact, our partners at the Huss Project, our local healthcare workers—all our neighbors! When you see us out and about in our neighborhoods, working at the farm, staffing our new Saturday market at the Huss Project, we want you to know we’re taking good care for you, for ourselves, and for all of us.

Even though we’re tired of it already…

Even though the degree of risk is low…

Even though we’d love to hug our friend who’s moving across the country after two years here…

Even though we’d much rather get back to normal and throw a big party…

We will continue to practice intentional safety measures as long as we need to for the sake of public health and the common good.

If anyone ever wonders where we stand and what we’re doing to be safe together, please don’t hesitate to ask. This is going to be a long haul, friends, and we’ll get through it best with shared information, grace, transparency, and mutual respect.

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*cino Work, Building, Education, Event, Fundraising, Hospitality, Leadership, People, Rectory Stories, SUSTAIN *cino

Summer snapshots at a glance

May 11 – *culture is not optional finishes up remodeling of 208 with the help of Florence Church members and other volunteers.

May 25 – Ale and Annelie begin AmeriCorps VISTA training. *cino is working to partner with AmeriCorps over the next three years to better build capacity for the organization as a whole. A few weeks later, the summer associates join for ten weeks.

June 10 – Summer lunches begin. The Huss Project has partnered seven summers so far with the Three Rivers Public Schools through their lunch program, Meet Up and Eat Up.

June 13 – The Huss Project joins the Three Rivers Water Fest Parade for to promote our work. This event gave AmeriCorps VISTA members a feel of the neighborhood and chance to meet the neighbors.

June 14 – *cino convenes with Camp Tavor over dinner at the camp. This year, Camp Tavor counselors stayed on rotation at 208 each week night.

June 15 – Summer work days begin at The Huss Project. For six weeks, we worked with volunteers from the neighborhood in preparation for Huss Future Festival and several other projects including the renovation of the Imaginarium and the pavilion.

June 20 –The Huss Project has its first Farmer’s Market of the season. Snap peas, strawberries and smiles!

June 21 –Malachi Carter comes all the way from Indianapolis to teach a photography class for kids at summer lunches. We had 12 kids participate and learn grow their visual art skills through practicing photography.

July 2 – Camp Tavor kids come out to volunteer with us at The Huss Project Gardens for Tikkun Olam. We had over 20 volunteers from the camp help weed the garden and plant tree saplings.

July 15 – Aundrea Syrie and Great Dane teach a creative workshop for kids in the neighborhood so that they can develop their love for words. We had 5 kids participate and stretch their confidence in making art with words.

July 23 – Anna teaches summer lunch kids the magic of compost. We had 8 kids participate and gain knowledge about the cycles of food from the soil to our plates and back into dirt through compost.

July 25 –In thanks to all of those who participated in the Big Steps Campaign, *cino hosts a soiree at the renovated Imaginarium.

July 27 – HUSS FUTURE FESTIVAL 2019 ARRIVES. We raised over $7,000 dollars with the help of volunteers and community members. Over 1,000 people from the community came to the festival to make art, get free school supplies for kids, eat delicious food, listen to local musicians perform, and connect with over 15 community resource organizations in our

July 30 – Tikkun Olam round two!

August 8 – Our summer associates’ last day on the job.

August 9 – Storytelling night commences with our wonderful host, Emily, prompting us to wonder about inheritance and legacy.

August 24 – Longtime community members, Alek and Deborah celebrate their love at the Imaginarium. First wedding ever hosted at Huss!

To summarize:

– At Huss Future Festival, we raised over $7,000 dollars this summer in support of the Huss Project.

– We built the pavilion and the Imaginarum.

– Our partnership with AmeriCorps began in efforts to keep this organization sustainable and joy-filled.

– We produced and distributed 2,353 pounds of vegetables this summer to the local food bank and the Three Rivers Farmers Market.

– Summer lunches were a success as we served and enjoyed food with a total of 1,454 children.

-*cino’s 100 Friends of Huss Campaign, launched this summer, partnering with long-term, dedicated lovers of food, art and play.

– Over 74 volunteers dedicated a total of 1,104 hours to Saturday Work Day projects, Summer Lunches, special education events, The Huss Project Farm, the Imaginarium and The Huss Future Festival.

Many thanks to our volunteers for contributing the time, financial support, gifts and love. This summer was filled with so much business, and your presence made all of the difference.

 

 

 

 

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*cino Work, Hospitality, Leadership, People, Uncategorized

Welcoming new *cino staff: Ale Crevier

We’re glad to have Ale onboard with us this year at The Huss Project! Ale recently graduated from Calvin College in Grand Rapids with degrees in Literature and Linguistics, and is currently putting her love for writing to use at *culture is not optional with the storytelling team.

Ale grew up in the big city of Chicago with a big family of eight. Known as the “circus” to some, her family has fostered much of the craziness, joy and growth in her life. She and neighborhood friends would constantly be hanging out at the house in the summer, telling stories, building forts and playing frisbee. That the doors were always unlocked communicated a simple, but important message, (aside from a reminder to find the lost key) : belonging belongs in and outside of our homes and ourselves – with community. Hospitality isn’t really a choice we give ourselves, but an opportunity that lives in us and is required of us.

*culture is not optional’s commitment to hospitality – grounded in a vision toward play, food and art – was one aspect that attracted Ale to come to Three Rivers. She hopes to put her language skills to use as an AmeriCorps volunteer this year, researching the history of Huss, sharing community members’ stories and updating social media with The Huss Project’s programming.

Among other questions that she is asking herself, Ale is wondering how she might develop consistent, daily habits that contribute to her mental health and social life in positive ways.

 

 

 

 

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Education, Hospitality, People, Rectory Stories, Three Rivers

Food and community: Chelsea’s reflection

We asked each of our 2016 summer interns to respond to their time in Three Rivers. Below is Chelsea Smith’s reflection:


My summer in Three Rivers gave me a glimpse into community life and left me eager to experience more. During my time with *cino, I stepped into a community that overflowed with creativity, joy, work, and rest. My role in the community manifested itself in many ways, mostly revolving around time and food. I grew food, cooked food, and shared food. I co-planned community events and enjoyed time with community members.

In college, I studied community development, so I came into this internship with some expectations of what I would learn and do. In many ways, working with *cino exceeded and reconstructed those expectations. Prior to this past summer, I would have said that I desired a lifestyle without rhythm and regularity. I liked switching things up and not falling into the same weekly routine. But I have grown to miss Monday night gatherings at the Riv, Tuesday “Garden of Your Mind” meetings, Wednesday communal work and pizza nights, etc. I realized during my *cino internship that rhythm is a sacred part of community. Gathering together regularly and sharing time (and food!) together is essential for building relationships and connections, especially when spending time in public spaces. These predictable gathering times were refreshing and restful times of my week.

When I studied community development in school, I dreamed of an exciting life as a “community developer” (or however that work would manifest). I thought the day-to-day life would be filled with inspiring actions, important decisions, and influential conversations. I learned this summer that those things do happen, but much more sporadically than imagined. The day-to-day role is filled with smaller moments of connection, commitment, and creativity. The details matter much more than I realized. Somewhere between planning kids’ crafts, cleaning the soon-to-be wood shop, and sewing countless feet of bunting, I discovered that there’s a sacredness in the details. After all, it’s the details that make the larger picture come together.

The connections I made during the ten weeks in Three Rivers were richer than connections I halfheartedly formed over double that amount of time. I felt more present working with *cino, where my priority was to invest in the community. This reflection was somewhat difficult to write, because I don’t feel like my time in Three Rivers is over. There is more to learn working with *cino, and I am still processing the impact of this summer internship. I am filled with gratitude for my experience in Three Rivers and still feel connected to the rich community there. I have a feeling this won’t be the end.

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Building, Education, Hospitality, People, Three Rivers

Calvin College students explore Three Rivers on Spring Break

Every year, we look forward to a visit from Calvin College students who are ready to serve and learn about Three Rivers over their spring break. We had to cancel our plans last year on account of low registration, but this year we are grateful for a very enjoyable and productive week with five eager and passionate students!

Calvin College’s Service-Learning Center coordinates groups for a week of service and learning with organizations around the country. Along with the *culture is not optional staff, the five students followed a rhythm of life together: beginning each day with morning prayer, working for several hours at the Huss Project in the morning, eating lunch at the Rectory, visiting local community members around Three Rivers in the afternoon, and cooking and lingering at the dinner table in the evening over conversations both weighty and light-hearted. The group stayed at The Hermitage and St. Gregory’s Abbey, which offered an environment of rest and contemplation during a busy week.

At the Huss Project, the main focus of the work was preparing the gym to be converted into space for a woodshop. Willing hands took down the drop ceiling to make way for new lighting, installed pallet racking for storage, and hauled away metal for recycling. Removing the ceiling revealed that we might be able to collect rainwater from the gym roof for the garden! The Huss Project garden is nearly ready for planting, thanks to the students who pulled out last year’s plants and harvested over-wintered carrots. Some much-needed organizing also took place in the office and supplies areas of the building.

In the afternoons, we visited neighbors and community members to listen to their stories and to learn how they make Three Rivers a unique place. We visited with farmers (and harvested more carrots!), artists, business owners, civic and church leaders, and monks and spiritual leaders. We had excellent conversations about the challenges and the life-giving aspects of living intentionally in a place.

It was wonderful to spend a rich, full week with curious, engaged, hardworking students who are asking good questions about the world we live in. At the end of the week, instead of “Goodbye,” we said, “See you soon!”

Find pictures of the week on our Flickr album.

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Event, Fundraising, Hospitality, People, Three Rivers

Creative collaboration at Harmony Fest

Each Labor Day weekend for the past 22 years, citizens of Three Rivers have been coming together across all sorts of boundaries to enjoy Harmony Fest, a day of live music in the historic downtown district.  For many years, World Fare, a fair trade store that *cino collaborates on, has been celebrating its anniversary during Harmony Fest.  This year was no exception, with the store celebrating 12 years in business.

But this year, we entered a new collaborative venture by helping launch Harmony Fest’s first ever beer garden.  For weeks leading up to the festival, *cino staff scavenged and hauled and strategized and painted to craft a beautiful environment that would encourage good conversation and responsible enjoyment of a great variety of Michigan microbrews.  We wanted to create a fun space that would honor the incredible legacy of Harmony Fest in bringing community-building art to our great city. The result was a 5,600 square foot garden featuring locally grown mums, handmade picnic tables, reclaimed pallets and fair trade planters.  Catch a glimpse by checking out our photos.  Our participation in designing and building the environment and recruiting volunteers earned a portion of the proceeds for the Huss Project.

Congratulations to the Three Rivers Downtown Development Authority and the Harmony Fest committee on another great event, and thanks for letting us be a part of it!

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*cino Work, Building, Education, Event, Hospitality, Organization, People, Publishing, Rectory Stories, Three Rivers

2014: Year in review

With hearts full of gratitude, we say goodbye to another year and anticipate 2015 with hope and discernment. Please enjoy this review, written by the members of our core community here in Three Rivers.  Thank you for the many ways you’ve supported *culture is not optional in the past year!  Our work is sustained by generous donations of all kinds and we thankfully receive your gifts of time, money, prayer and encouragement.  Please be in touch about how you’d like to be involved in the coming year, and if you’d like to make a financial contribution, you can do so here.  Peace be with you in the coming year!


COMMUNITY: Volunteer partners come and go, while friendships remain

by Jay Howard

The Rectory, *cino’s community house, was full of good food and laughter in 2014. Jay, Liesje and Deborah endured an exceptionally snowy, cold winter, looking forward to summer when four amazing interns joined the household: Seth, Alexandra, Kate and Nate. They were a wonderful addition to our group, bringing many gifts to the work of a prosperous community garden, exciting and creative Community Fun Nights, a glowing Future Festival and lovely Friday night potlucks. In addition, we hosted visitors from Project Neighborhood, a Calvin College spring break group and a service group from Palmerston, Ontario, who all helped out at the Huss Project and explored the Three Rivers community.  Now as we make our way toward the end of the year, the Rectory will be losing one its inhabitants as Jay is heads to Grand Rapids to pursue new adventures.  Deborah and Liesje, along with Rob, Kirstin, Julie and David, continue to gather regularly as a core group, sharing and discerning the focus of our work for the coming year.

 

SHARING: Telling tales and tasting treats

by David Stewart

Preparing and eating food and telling stories has become central to what *cino does. This year we hosted Underground Supper Clubs on monastery grounds at St. Gregory’s Abbey and in the heart of downtown Three Rivers in one of the beautiful storefronts along Main Street. We told stories about our origins, local haunts, our favorite books, and about our love of food during storytelling events at the Huss Project. We want everyone to experience these sacred acts as fully as we do, something that has become clearer to us over the past year. There are stories in food, and stories in turn are food for the soul. It is our hope in 2015 to make more stories and to find more amazing ways to serve excellent food to the people who love it.

 

PLAY: Growing friendships with our neighbors at Huss

by Liesje Brouwer

Once again in 2014, Huss served as a site for a summer lunch program in partnership with Three Rivers Community Schools. School-aged kids in our neighborhood enjoyed over 700 lunches throughout the summer, gathered around the new picnic tables we built in June. In addition, the Huss Project hosted weekly Community Fun Nights where friends of *cino gathered for baked goods, garden goodies, games and crafts. 40-60 kids, parents and other neighbors attended each week—more than ever before! *cino invested in flag football gear, which was put to good use every week as we worked together with our young neighbors on building respectful relationships. We cranked up our jammin’ play list and ran around with kids and had conversations with adults and basked in the sun and learned a little bit more about one another. On the final fun night, all the kids gathered around and held a string attached to a homemade piñata, then collectively pulled their strings to break it open. The most popular piñata find: bouncy balls! Community Fun Night and summer lunches help us to stay connected to the neighborhood, and our neighbors. A big thank you to everyone who participated!

 

CELEBRATION: Creative connectivity at Huss Future Festival

by Julie Keefer

The fifth annual Huss Future Fest on July 19 was a day full of activities that brought in over 600 visitors, community partners and volunteers — that’s nearly double the attendance in 2013 and it’s encouraging to see the festival grow as a fun, creative and safe place for neighbors to gather.  Future Fest is the pinnacle of our summer for *cino staff, interns and volunteers who put in countless hours full of blood, sweat and, yes, even sometimes tears to clean, plan, paint, fold, mow, imagine, and clean some more. A highlight this year was partnering with TRAFC (Three Rivers Area Faith Community) to host their annual Back-to-School Celebration.  We saw lots of families coming to the festival to join in the fun and get backpacks full of school supplies. In addition, volunteers from the Huss Project’s community garden sold quinoa salad and grilled veggies and brats, while the locally-famous Weenie King added his hotdog stand to our food options.  This year we hosted our second Coin Carnival partnering with local organizations: Three Rivers Public Library, Red Cross, Save the Frogs, River Country Resilience Circle, Congo Cloth Connection/Florence Church, St. Joseph County Department of Human Services, Pregnancy Helpline, St. Joseph County ISD/Great Start, Animal Rescue Fund and Flowerfield Enterprises.  Many local farmers also donated generous amounts of produce for our mini farmers market: Triple Ripple Community Garden, White Yarrow Farm, Bair Lane Farm, Corey Lake Orchard and Butternut Sustainable Farm.  Dozens of volunteers also helped coordinate many activities for kids, a rummage sale, art vendors, workshops, art installations, a bake sale and live music.  It was a joy to witness such incredible collaboration, which is a primary value we hope to cultivate at the Huss property.  At the end of the festival, our *cino community, friends and festival attendees took the opportunity to celebrate in gratitude for the Huss Project’s fifth anniversary with a five-song dance party!

 

FLAVOR: Sharing fresh, local food with our community

by Rob Vander Giessen-Reitsma

Working alongside our neighbors, we continued to produce food at the Huss Project this year in our wild and wooly community garden. In June, we hosted a compost tea workshop where several of us learned how to create organic, nutrient-rich fertilizer for our gardens. Even as we struggled with a streak of vandalism, we distributed the garden produce to individuals and families in need through several agencies in our county. Beyond just our own garden, *cino helped publish a local food and recycling guide for our region.  We also partnered with several local farms this summer to sell their produce alongside our own at the Three Rivers Farmers Market. After the market closed for the season, we gathered additional farm partners and opened the Downtown Harvest Market in a downtown storefront on Saturdays in September and October. Through these efforts, we shared and sold fresh, local food to a wide variety of people in our community, raising over $3,300 for continued food production at the Huss Project in the future.

 

REFLECTION: Pausing to consider with catapult and the daily asterisk

by Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma

The question has come up with increasing frequency: what happened to catapult?  With many changes in the lives of *cino community members over the past year, 2014 seemed like a good time to pause for a little while and re-imagine the function, look and structure of this longstanding online publication.  We initiated a survey that gleaned rich feedback from both new and veteran readers and contributors and we look forward to digging into those ideas in 2015 to see what seeds show promise of germination in the spring.  In the meantime, the daily asterisk has continued to be a provocative resource, drawing from many voices past and present, who speak insightfully to the pressing issues of our time with celebration and lament, encouragement and repentance, joy and critique.  If you’re not receiving the daily asterisk already, you can sign up for the e-mail list here and dig into the archives here.

 

CONVERSATION: Discussing our core values, our community, and our future

by Deborah Haak

For all of the hustle and bustle of the year, the *cino staff also made concerted efforts to sit, read, discuss, and dream. We gathered each week over the summer with interns to explore *cino’s core values, and that conversation has continued this fall and winter with a discussion of Peter Block’s book Community: The Structure of Belonging. At the staff retreat this fall, we reflected on 2014, discussing *cino’s successes and shortcomings, evaluating roles and duties in light of staffing changes, and brainstorming where to focus our energy in 2015 and beyond — all while sharing delicious food and enjoying each others’ company!

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*cino Work, Education, Hospitality, People, Rectory Stories, Three Rivers

Space to celebrate: Kate’s reflection

I’m back in Maine for the final year of my undergraduate degree. It still seems to me that I only just left Maine for Michigan, full of the nervous excitement I felt about embarking on an adventure in a new-to-me place, with new-to-me people, doing who knows what.

I had very few expectations for this summer, which are not to be confused with low expectations. Having procrastinated on finding the internship that I needed to do before graduating, I took to the internet to find somewhere to live, learn, and love. *cino appeared ala le Google and I sent in a wordy application with fingers crossed.

Weeks later, I was welcomed to Three Rivers with radical hospitality. I arrived road weary, frazzled and a day earlier than anticipated and the Rectory folk cleared me a corner, found me a bed, and fed me; they took me in and gave me space to rest and settle. I was quickly swept into the rhythms of the work we do here and the embrace of the communities we’ve built.

In the ten or so weeks I spent in Three Rivers I helped *cino host the Meet Up Eat Up lunch program (daily lunches for school-aged children), co-created new signs for the garden, planned Community Fun Nights, and organized and created signage for Future Festival. I was the million-questions, bread baker, granola maker, laugh generator. Through the fast paced groove of this summer I was a friend, a listener, and a dish-washing tune crooner.

It took me a while to adjust to my new environment. I had come from the location of the earliest sunrise in the U.S. and found a place where our mosquitoey, wonderful porch dinners were lit via that same sun until ten at night, but soon I was nestled into life and work with *cino.

That summer sun watched over me and kept me warm all throughout this “thinking” summer, as one new friend called it. It was a relatively cool Michigan summer versus those summers we all dread where the sun beats down as we struggle to even gather our thoughts. As I reflect on the ten weeks I spent with the *cino gang, I struggle to articulate how much I’ve learned this summer and how it’s changed my idea of what I’d like to see in the future for myself and the world I inhabit and how to get there.

Those mosquitoey dinners eventually moved indoors; I was welcomed by a web of wonderful new friends who made me feel loved  and appreciated; we had long, rich conversations on how to live the “good life” and what cartoon hottie captured our adolescent hearts; and I found a space to celebrate my own contributions and talents: I have lived, learned, and loved this summer with *cino.

Above: Kate working t-shirt stenciling, one of the many projects she took on this summer in her work with *cino.

 

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Building, Hospitality, People

Our new friends from Palmerston, Ontario

During the week of June 30, the walls of the Huss Project buzzed with the sounds of hammers, nails, laughter, and good-natured Canadian “eh’s?” as a service group from Palmerston, Ontario provided some much-appreciated labor and much-enjoyed friendship to the *culture is not optional team. In partnership with Three Rivers Christian Reformed Church, who arranged the visit and hosted, Huss served as a work site for the group throughout the week.

The Palmerstonians worked long and hard to move Huss a large leap closer to being Future Festival-ready. Some of their hard work went to projects for general Huss improvement, such as removing the fence along Broadway, removing the ceiling in one room, sealing the roof against future leaks, cleaning out debris from the roof,  and clearing the lawn from branches. Other work went specifically to getting Huss prepared for Future Festival, such as weeding and mulching the garden, edging the lawn, removing collected debris, moving lumber and chairs, sorting donations for the Future Festival rummage sale, cleaning the hallways, and cutting decorative bunting. Some work was just part of our weekly maintenance and activities hosted at Huss, such as mowing the lawn and planning that week’s Community Fun Night craft.

All in all, there was a lot of hard work accomplished and a lot of fun had. Our staff learned the lyrics to the Canadian National Anthem (on Canada Day), and some of the Palmerston students were introduced to kale for the first time. Children from the community enjoyed having extra people to play with during community fun nights when our Palmerston friends joined in kickball, crafting, and even teaching the kids basic gymnastics. Some of the Palmerston workers noted that there was a lot of physical labor to be done at Huss, but that they enjoyed it because of the tangible difference they could see was being made. Multiple team members noted their visit to Huss to be their “favorite service project ever!” And we couldn’t be more grateful for their hard work and kind company.

Several teenagers from Three Rivers CRC integrated with the Palmerston group and served alongside them all week. *cino co-director Kirstin Vander Giessen-Retisma noted, “I really appreciated seeing local teens I know from other contexts taking on roles as leaders with the out-of-town volunteers. They did a great job of making their new friends feel welcome here in Three Rivers. Each person’s unique gifts and passions emerged throughout the week — some dove into physical labor, some were patient with tedious tasks, some brought their creativity and friendliness, some entertained the crowd with jokes or dancing or singing (sometimes all at once). Overall, everyone contributed to making the Huss Project a beautiful space for play, hospitality and neighborliness.”

Thank you, Palmerston friends!

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