By Justin Rothshank '00,
Brad Siemens '99 and Jessica King
The corner of Stanton and Negley Avenues, in Pittsburgh's East
End, is a busy one. It is the physical intersection of three ethnically
and economically diverse neighborhoods. Bus stops for seven city
bus routes are located there, and 10,000 people pass through on
foot or wheels each day. There is a drugstore, a behavioral school,
an apartment building and a 100-year-old church building. Now
it also hosts the Union Project, an innovative nonprofit organization
involving eight GC graduates.
The Union Project was founded in January 2001 by a group of Mennonites
striving to use their ideals about faith and community to make
their neighborhood a better place. They chose a 15,000-square-foot,
soot-covered church abandoned for 10 years to house the initiative,
and the building itself plays an important role. The Union Project's
mission is to restore the former Union Baptist Church to provide
gathering and working space for artists, community builders and
people of faith.
James
Eash '01 was the Union Project's first volunteer intern, through
Mennonite Urban Corps. The group was interested in this particular
building, he said. "A lot of us work in areas of the arts,
community building, social services, etc., but the idea that an
immediate impact could be made locally - and apart from what we
do for a living - was impressive," Eash continued.
The neighborhoods surrounding the Union Project noticed this impact
in at least one immediate way: the dumpsters. With the help of
many volunteers, five dumpsters have been filled with the detritus
of neglectful owners, including 21 dead pigeons, dozens of garbage
bags of rotting plaster and several exterior walls worth of poison
ivy. The building, long a neighborhood eyesore, is now starting
to look like people care about it.
Irene McLaughlin, a neighbor and City of Pittsburgh magistrate
said, "I knew something good was happening for sure when
I would walk to the bus stop in the snow and the sidewalks in
front of that old church were shoveled."
Though the exterior is already showing progress, it's the project's
programming that reflects the Mennonite roots of the Union Project,
which strives to shed the light of faith onto community arts -
infusing the creative into experiences with the divine, and claiming
a spot for the divine in the creative process.
The schedule of events held in the unfinished building reflects
the diversity the project is trying to cultivate. One Sunday in
April 2002, Pittsburgh Mennonite Church worshipped in the Union
Project building around the set that a local theater troupe had
built during the previous three weeks for a play about 18th-century
vampires. In August, a hip-hop concert and break dancing contest
were sandwiched around an interdenominational hymn sing. Every
week in the summer, the lawn hosts a farmers' market with local
organic products.
In addition to the nontraditional take on community arts and the
unique slate of events accompanying it, the Union Project has
borrowed from Mennonite and Amish communal models to create an
uncommon approach to the building renovation.
"Mennonites have a solid history of using the hands of many
to make the workload light," said Heather Kropf '94, one
of the Union Project's founders.
To this end, the Union Project has received over 4,500 volunteer
hours from a healthy balance of locals and Mennonite youth groups,
colleges and interested individuals - a trend that could significantly
lower the total cost of the building's renovation.
This barn-raising ethos will need to continue for the project
to be a success. Although the Union Project has already raised
over $100,000 through donations, grants and in-kind gifts, the
total amount needed to complete renovation is estimated at nearly
$2 million. To complete such a campaign will require a broad base
of support from the local philanthropic community, local and state
government sources and Mennonite individuals, congregations and
institutions interested in seeing a young, urban expression of
Mennonite faith succeed.
According to Union Project Board Chair Brad Siemens '99, the funding
network is developing positively. "We've received a lot of
encouragement from a wide array of people - from pastors to Pittsburgh
City Council representatives to secular starving artists - because
we're taking Mennonite ideals we've been taught all our lives
- GC's 'Culture for Service' motto comes to mind - and in our
own practical way giving them life in our physical, professional
and creative communities."
This convergence of circumstances, youthful idealism and solid
Mennonite ideals has attracted the attention of Pittsburgh's press
corps also. Over the past year, articles about the Union Project
have appeared in the Pittsburgh Business Times, both of Pittsburgh's
daily newspapers, one of the city's two weekly newspapers, the
local public television station, and numerous neighborhood newsletters.
A writer in Pulp, a city-wide free weekly publication, summed
up the Union Project like this in a cover story, "What the
folks behind the Union Project understand is this: The possibility,
however slight, of different people - blacks, whites, Christians,
Muslims, PTA mothers - gathering in one space, for whatever the
reason, is far too lovely a future not to work toward."
Other GC graduates who have been involved with the Union Project
at some point during its creation include Keith Hershberger '94,
Chad Martin '98, Zach Landis-Lewis '00, Peter Eash Scott '99,
Marissa Smucker '94 and Ryan Sauder '97.
For more information about the Union Project, visit on-line at
www.unionproject.org
or call (412) 363-4550.
