This is part two of the conversation I had with Avery Rhodes, the Executive Director of Community on the Rise. You can read part one here.
Avery and I met in Community on the Rise’s central community space which they call the learning center. When you enter this space, it feels less like what you would imagine as a learning center and more like a cross over between a coffee shop and a living room assembled by someone with an eye for design. There’s candles, large abstract paintings adoring the walls alongside quotes that speak about strength and perseverance like this one from…, a “feelings wheel”, a portrait of the 20th century writer James Baldwin, a few dining room tables, and a big sofa and chairs next to a book shelf in the back corner.
Avery tells me that everything I see and feel in this space is intentional. “I think it matters how a space makes you feel as a human being.” says Avery. “We are integrated into the spaces that we're in, immediately, the smells, the visuals, the sounds, right? And I don't think there are many people that step over our threshold, from the community we serve, who haven't experienced trauma and pain to an extreme degree. And so first, I want to offer a space that can help regulate those nervous systems. It's peaceful, it smells good, it's quiet to a degree. Sometimes we're loud and boisterous and cheering, but it has a purpose.”
The purpose is to remind people, Avery explains, “of their worth and value when they come into this space, and that's because we hear stories all the time about the lines they have to stand in, the hoops they have to jump through, and the suspicious looks they get when they go to different places.”
The many clients that come through Community on the Rise each week to get an ID or lost Birth Certificate are not the only ones who appreciate the learning center. Volunteers also appreciate the space. Avery tells me, “I've even had volunteers say to me before, ‘Gosh now that I'm here, I want to leave. I just feel so good here.”
This highlights, for Avery, the importance of mental health. Mental health, though undervalued in society, is something Avery is passionate about and has made a central focus at Community on the Rise. She spoke to the importance of mental health when she explained, “There are things coming at us from every direction all the time. It's hard for any of our nervous systems to regulate. And so to be in a space where you are intentionally seen and heard and welcomed and treated as a VIP guest, whether you're somebody who is unhoused under a bridge or somebody coming from the suburbs and you have been, stressing out about your work or something going on in your family, we want you to feel that same welcome.”
The value placed on mental health shows up in a number of ways at Community on the Rise. Not least of all, in the talk about feelings that occur at Community on the Rise. “When people are in crisis mode,” Avery explains, “or survival mode it is really impossible to consider or dig deep or process what you're feeling beneath that immediate need for survival…There's no time to reminisce over your deep God given gifts that you don't have time to explore anymore. It's just survive, survive, survive.”
Avery ties all this back into the sights, smells, and feel of the learning center. “And so part of the reason that we want this space to be so beautiful and welcoming is we want people to have the chance to breathe and become aware of what they're feeling as they stabilize. And that self awareness is everything, because that's going to change the way you show up.”
These components of mental health are foundational to the WHOLE Life program at Community on the Rise. The WHOLE Life program provides survivors of homelessness free housing in their safe home, individualized and group therapy, and the ability to earn an income working in the plastics recycling workshop.
If you walk through the doors at the far end of the learning center, you’ll find yourself in the workshop. The smell’s different - melted plastic overtakes the calming smells of the learning center - but the mission is the same. At the workshop, the women in the WHOLE program take #5 plastics that have been discarded and craft them into beautiful pieces of jewelry. The jewelry is sold online to support the mission of Community on the Rise.
We at Church of the Reconciler are grateful for the mission of Community on the Rise and our partnership. You can learn more about Community on the Rise by visiting their website.