Description
What does it mean to shelter in place when you have no shelter? This is the question posed by a project developed by New Brunswick Theological Seminary, in partnership with Rutgers University and the Reformed Church of Highland Park Affordable Housing Corporation (RCHP-AHC). The recipient of a May 2011 Luce Foundation grant to support its work on global Christianity, New Brunswick Theological Seminary was founded in 1784. First established in New York City, the seminary has had a presence in New Brunswick since the early 19th century, and was closely connected to Rutgers in its early years. While its current relationships with Rutgers are relatively minimal, the seminary now has established partnerships with a range of community organizations, including the affordable housing corporation that will serve as the lead partner on this project. The majority of the proposed COVID Emergency Grant would support efforts of the Affordable Housing Corporation, a 501c3 organization housed at the Reformed Church of Highland Park, next door to New Brunswick. RCHP-AHC provides shelter, permanent supportive housing, resettlement services, sanctuary from deportation, post-incarceration transitional services, and wrap-around case management. Funds will be used to provide homes and services for 10-15 families and/or individuals (minimum 60 people) whose housing and other basic needs, such as the purchasing of food and medicine, have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Alongside this provision of direct community aid, the seminary will develop two different initiatives to consider challenges to human flourishing, to document stories of resilience, and to interpret complex social issues in the period of COVID-19. The first of these will establish a cohort of seminary students and Rutgers University students to collaborate with community partners in documenting the experiences of housing program participants through the preservation and generation of oral history interviews, multimedia, art, and artifacts – resulting in the creation of a public history archive. Secondly, the seminary will partner with coLAB Arts – a New Brunswick-based humanities and arts non-profit with established relationships with RCHP-AHC – to curate artistic contributions (poems, music, creative writing, visual arts, dance) based on submissions to the public history archive. Both of these experimental and thoughtfully composed initiatives are described in greater detail in the proposal.
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