Journey’s Way partners with Citylight Church for spring clean up-up

The Journey’s Way has experienced to locate some creative strategies to stay linked to the community all through the the direful pandemic’s 12 months-long reign.

Journey’s Way, which is positioned at 403 Rector St., is a non-earnings multipurpose senior centre serving adults 55+ from the regional place and over and above. They are aspect of the INTERAC (Intercommunity Action) and their mission for the previous 50 many years has been to assist persons of all age teams by furnishing sources to support pursue a fulfilling lifetime.

1 of the courses of motion that Director Karen Rouse engineered to let JW to keep on to have an influence in the local community in spite of the constructing lockdown was to spouse with the Citylight Church to assistance put into action some of their outreach systems.

A excellent example of this collaboration was a new pre-Easter clear-up by Citylight Church volunteers at the household of Carol Seeger on Summit Avenue. A handful of households, which include youngsters as youthful as 2, put in a few several hours on a beautiful Spring day sprucing up the house by accumulating leaves, clearing the eaves, and trimming hedges. Portion of Rouse’s strategy was to “build some intergenerational bridges” together with “teaching youngsters about the significance of serving.”

By the end of the working day, Citylight volunteers had taken aspect in 4 further yard clean up-ups. On that very same Saturday, Citylight volunteers delivered 26 Easter food packing containers to seniors in the Roxborough spot. Some had been dropped off at the Pensdale Village Senior Apartments, portion of the Journey’s Way Aging Products and services.

The partnership with Citylight Church, at 4001 Freeland Ave., dates back again to close to the start out of the Covid limitations in April of 2020 when CL volunteers initial commenced helping Journey’s Way by offering month-to-month food packing containers from Philabundance to support community seniors with their grocery requirements. With Journey’s Way workers performing from household over the previous year, Citylight has been a Godsend in letting JW to continue to be a lively existence in the group.

By way of the relationship of Emily Ronca and a dedicated group of caring volunteers at the Citylight Church, quite a few of the JW initiatives continue to have community affect. According to Director Karen Rouse, “Journey’s Way partnership with Citylight Church has been a blessing throughout these complicated instances. The volunteers have provided assist and inspiration to the team and the Seniors we serve.”

Get & Go goodie luggage, skillfully assembled by CL volunteers, continue on to get into the fingers of appreciative seniors who enjoy the delicious treats and inspirational messages that are incorporated with their weekly Seize & Go foods.

One more worthwhile plan that has significant merit is the Pen Pal Job. The system is to match little ones and households with intrigued seniors searching to make a relationship by the crafting course of action.

Emily Ronca is ecstatic about the opportunity to partner up with this kind of a caring-based firm like Journey’s Way. She states that the partnership is advantageous simply because it “offers a tangible way to bless the community frequently, but precisely seniors who are often invisible in our culture.”

She stated the emotional toll that the pandemic has had on seniors manly due to social isolation and how the Citylight Church can be of comfort and ease to them. She added that “serving and expending time with seniors is an avenue for us in the more youthful generations to discover from them and tap into the font of knowledge they offer,”

Citylight pastor Paul Fuller sees the exceptional opportunity that the partnership with Journey’s Way affords his flock. He associated that, “as a church seeking to comply with Jesus, we know that He came not to be serve, but to provide. We want to adore our neighbors and be a source to our local community.”

In phrases of possessing an impression with the aged, Pastor Fuller even further said that “our partnership with Journey’s Way is a excellent way to do that, in particular as our warmhearted volunteers serve an usually forgotten populace.”

Rouse hopes that their collaborative attempts will proceed to bear fruit down the road and expresses real affection about the partnership. “They have been trustworthy, dependable and have absent earlier mentioned and outside of to help…they definitely have a servant’s coronary heart.” This sounds like a match built in heaven!