The Neighborhood Café happens every Tuesday evening at the Neighborhood Faith Community from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm. This event is completely run by volunteers and completely free for anyone who wishes to join. Each Tuesday, a warm, delicious meal is shared by over 100 people who come together to make the Café possible. The atmosphere at the Café is that of a restaurant complete with tablecloths, table centerpieces, and welcoming lighting from hanging lanterns. Along with the meal, an open mic gives a way for anyone to share music, poetry, or stories to the room of diners.
At the heart of the Neighborhood Café is the building of community. The Café is a place of welcome and affirmation for all. It provides an environment for people to connect, have conversation, eat, and enjoy entertainment from local talent. The Neighborhood Café is a place to get warm, relax, and enjoy the company of your community.
If you would like to see the minutes from our last Practical Visionaries meeting, please click here.
Mission Statement:
The Neighborhood Cafe is a community experience of welcome and affirmation, a safe place, a safe space, where opportunities for healing, generosity, relationship and growth abound.
Statement of Purpose:
The Neighborhood Cafe is a new kind of outreach, brining people from all walks of life together in service to each other, to build a generous and accepting community. Our name comes from the age-old question, "who is my neighbor?" In responding to that question we are creating a "neighborhood" where all sorts of hungry people come to be fed. We are all hungry: some for food, some to share their expertise in a way that is meaningful, some for a sense of purpose and some to belong. All of our hungers lead us to relationships with one another. At the Cafe, there is a free meal, an open mic for anyone to share their talents, and a safe and positive place to connect with others, musicians are fed by sharing their music. Nurses are fed by sharing healing. Everyone is fed by planning menus, creating a welcoming environment, cooking and serving great food, and developing relationships across boundaries of age, background, and status. When this is happening, our hearts brim with joy, we smile and say, "you are my neighbor!"