Our Community Place

Our Community Place is a community center created by a former Salvation Army building located in Harrisonburg, Virginia, United States. The building was converted to a community center after Ron Copeland acquired ownership in 1999. After a lengthy renovation period, the center opened to the community in August 2008.

History 
In 1999, Ron Copeland, owner of the Little Grill diner  purchased the then-vacant Salvation Army building at 17 East Johnson Street in Harrisonburg, Virginia — with hopes of creating a community center as an extension of the weekly soup kitchen he operated at his restaurant on Mondays. After a period of rehabbing the building, Our Community Place opened to the Harrisonburg, Virginia community in August 2008.

With Copeland serving as director, OCP staff and volunteers soon became "overworked" by a single aspect of the organizational mission: serving as a day homeless shelter. This led to a decision by the board of directors to close the center temporarily on September 1, 2011.

After a brief "hiatus" to allow for review and redirection, the center reopened October 11, 2011. Copeland said OCP was not undergoing a "reincarnation as a change so much as a refocusing on its original mission."

Reopening 
After reopening, and Philip Fisher Rhodes took over as executive director. Community center hours were significantly reduced. Of this change in leadership, and his additional role as founder-pastor of Early Church — a Mennonite congregation that met at OCP — Copeland said, "I had three full-time jobs, and I gave up two of them. . . I'm very excited to begin focusing on the work of the church I'm a pastor of."

The center, which had been offering its lawn as a place for area homeless to shelter in tents, was forced to end this policy in the summer of 2019 by the City of Harrisonburg. The city made it clear that "under the current laws our zoning does not allow for overnight sheltering.”

This change in availability of space for the homeless to stay forced the city to consider developing other options, while freeing OCP to focus on its priority programs. As Nickels stated:

City Manager Eric Campbell stated city staff had been working for months to identify gaps in the local services offered to homeless people and wondering, “How do we begin to address these gaps?”

Community role 

OCP operates and manages a community center that "offers creative community meals, recreational activities, meaningful work, rest from the elements, positive relationships, spiritual guidance, and some basic services for individuals struggling with homelessness." Meals the center offers also provide "an opportunity for employment, skill building volunteerism."

In a January 7, 2021 letter to the editor entitled "Nobody Should Be Hungry" in the local newspaper, Nickels said, "We serve a free hot breakfast Monday through Friday at 8 a.m., lunch at noon, we hand out groceries to families in need, and refer people to a variety of resources that can help with utility payments, rent/mortgage payments. We help people access housing when homeless and other needs. . ."

In addition to meals and shelter, OCP offers services such as laundry and showers, storage lockers, case management, volunteer and job training opportunities, and help finding housing.

Meals 
OCP provides "17,000 meals a year to the city’s homeless and others with food insecurity." It also operates a restaurant every Friday at lunchtime, with a guest chef from a local restaurant or food service preparing the meal.

The center serves 100 people or so at Thanksgiving each year; its volunteers additionally delivered 40 meals to "people in need around the community" in 2022.

Shelter 
Other shelter services for the homeless in Harrisonburg look to OCP to provide overflow support when the weather turns particularly cold. As Ashley Robinson, shelter director of the Open Door Thermal Shelter, said during a cold snap in January 2022, “What we’ve been looking into is possibly extending hours and working with other organizations like Our Community Place, just trying to keep our unhoused neighbors safe and warm.” The center opens on weekends for such emergency use. OCP extends its hours during extremely cold weather, requiring additional shelter monitors during the day.

OCP also provides relief from the heat of summer. As case management specialist Amanda Morris states: "we provide people kind of a cool place to come in just to hang out and get outside of the heat.”

Providing for affordable housing for all is a major aim included in Harrisonburg's 2039 Vision Plan. In accordance, in November 2021 the City Council agreed that part of the city's $23.8 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds should be used to provide a permanent homeless shelter. 

The City of Harrisonburg announced in June 2022 it intended to purchase a 6,730-square-foot building situated on 3.72 acres of land on North Main Street from Shenandoah Presbytery for the purpose of converting the property into a permanent, low-barrier homeless shelter. Nickels stated, “We have an opportunity now as a community to plan comprehensive homeless services. How can we effectively put together those services in a way that really helps folks to move on from homelessness?”

When Open Doors, the low-barrier shelter system housing up to 50 people each night on James Madison University property, ceased operation in August 2022, some "unhoused" Harrisonburg residents were considering other options, including sleeping on the sidewalks around OCP. Center staff participated in a meeting of city and community leaders hosted by Harrisonburg Mayor Deanna Reed to discuss short-term options for providing overnight shelter.

Water 
As part of a new program called “The Humankind Water Drop” Humankind Water set itself the goal of delivering 100,000 liters of water to homeless shelters across the country. In August 2021, the organization donated water to Mercy House in Harrisonburg, whose Executive Director, Shannon Porter, planned on sharing with Our Community Place and the Open Doors shelter. "There’s a lot of people on our streets right now that need this type of assistance. It is hot during the day and there is no shelter for them during the day so this is going to be put to use very quickly,” she said. 

Kitchen coordinator Margot Heffernan confirms, “We put big water jugs out in the early part of the day, even before we open so that there’s always a source of water for people when they’re feeling especially hot.”

Housing 
OCP began working with Harrisonburg-area landlords in 2020 to help them better understand the needs of OCP's client population as property management companies tend to erect "barriers, making it difficult for those who are low-income, have been previously incarcerated, or have a history of eviction to gain access to equitable housing." This helped advance their aim to:

In 2020 OCP placed upwards 50+ people in permanent housing. They had "solidified 15 placements" through the Spring of 2021. The center helped 90+ homeless people find housing during the COVID-19.

In December 2021, Nickles announced that OCP had just purchased their first property. "It’s sort of a pilot program, so if it works out well, hopefully we will do another one.” As Vance Fowler, 45, who has lived at a property owned by OCP since December 2021, stated:

OCP has applied for a special-use permit and rezoning request for another project on Reservoir Street in Harrisonburg, consisting of four units of one-bedroom dwellings for people "transitioning out of homelessness."

In March 2022, OCP was awarded $118,106 of the total the Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission $1.66 million in gap funding to regional developers of affordable housing. “These monies will cover half the cost for Our Community Place to build two efficiency apartments for the most vulnerable and low-income homeless persons in our region,” Nickels said.

Garden 
OCP operates a community garden on half an acre between two houses nearby the center. Activities and programming coordinator, Leons Kabongo, who directs the OCP project Young Jupiter Market Garden, wants the garden to be a place "where community volunteers help prepare the soil, plant and harvest the produce and, of course, pull weeds" and "marginalized people can come to as a refuge. "The “Young” in the name is meant "to inspire youth to learn about their environment, nature and growing their own food." "Jupiter" is meant to give others the feeling Kabongo found working the land.

Funding 

In support of the important role OCP plays in the Harrisonburg-area, the Rockingham County budget for fiscal year 2023 includes $15,000 for the center and its programs.

In addition to the Friday Lunch Restaurant (originally Night Out) and Box Lunch Catering, fundraising OCP participates in the Harrisonburg-Rockingham County Great Community Give each year. In April 2022 over $50,000 was collected by OCP out of a total of $1.72 raised during the event. From 2003, and for years thereafter, OCP sponsored a plant sale with live music, also in April.

During the COVID-19 shutdown, OCP decided to combine their two major fundraising events – a Fall Gala and the Christmas Concert – in 2020. Local chef Tassie Pippert worked with the center's cooks to prepare the dinner for the Fall Gala. Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show and Trent Wagler of The Steel Wheels performed during the live-streamed concert. Executive director, Sam Nickels, described getting through the pandemic as "an unpredictable and crazy roller coaster."

OCP pools resources with other Harrisonburg organizations – Mercy House, Open Doors, and the Suitcase Clinic – to "bolster aid . . during the era of COVID-19, which has required an additional level of coordination to keep vulnerable clients safe and healthy." The center benefited from Federal funding through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed by Congress which allowed the center to retain all of its existing staff and giving them "the freedom to hire additional staff to meet the expanded programming needs stemming from the COVID-19 emergency,” said Eric Olson-Getty, director of development and administration.

The center was one of 12 community partners in the Harrisonburg area who received $14,000 out of a total of more than $518,000 as part of the Sentara Healthcare Fall 2022 "Sentara Cares" grant cycle. This funding will go "specifically to our case management program. . allow(ing) case managers to visit folks in their houses. It will help cover transportation costs. So we can work with people in their housing to resolve issues and keep them housed,” Nickels states.

In February 2018, OCP received a $3,000 grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation, proceeds from which they planned to use "to supply nearly 400 meals". The Denton Family Foundation presented OCP with a check for $33,200 on November 16, 2021. The foundation annually hosts a golf tournament to raise money to donate to non-profit organizations in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. On presenting the check, Terri Denton, whose father established the foundation, said:

For the second time, Impact Ministries of Elkton, Virginia – founded in 2012 by Pastor Brad Lewis in a garage – chose OCP as the organization to sponsor with one of its charity motorcycle rides in 2019. Thirty riders participated in the fundraising event on a Saturday in October, raising over $500 in charitable contributions.

Solar panels 
In 2018, Give Solar, a nonprofit organization founded by Jeff Heie, "raises money and seeks grants to provide solar energy to other nonprofits that can benefit from the cost savings that solar energy can provide." After working with Eastern Mennonite University and Gift and Thrift in Harrisonburg, they made solarizing the OCP building their next project. Give Solar was granted $9,000 by the Merck Company Foundation with an additional $9,000 raised through crowdfunding and "affinity groups". In a “solar barn-raising”, $25,000 in solar panels were installed with the help of volunteers. The solar energy collected by these panels was expected to reduce the community center's electric bill by 75 percent, which should amount to about $3,600 a year in savings.

Personnel 
As of February 2021, Sam Nickels served as executive director, with a salary of just under $40,000 per annum. He stated his intention to resign in a letter posted to the OCP website on April 27, 2023. Matt Tibbles serves as the new executive director (as of July 2023). Other staff include:

Gallery

Major organizational funders 
Major organizational sources of funding for OCP include:
 Merck Foundation
 JustPax Fund
 United Way
 Bank of America
 SunTrust Bank
 Food Lion
 First Presbyterian Church of Harrisonburg
 Shalom Mennonite Church
 Community Mennonite Church
Denton Family Foundation
In-kind donations (produce, other food, tent rentals, etc.) come from a number of sources, including:

 Farmers & Merchants Bank
 Hess Financial
 LPL Financial
 Park View Bank FCU
 Dupont Bank FCU
 The Harrisonburg-Rockingham Community Foundation
 Truist (BBT & SunTrust) Foundation
 United Way
 Bank of America
 Blue Ridge Area Food Bank
 Everence
 First Bank & Trust
 CoBank

References

External links 

 
 GuideStar: Our Community Place
 GreatNonProfits: Our Community Place
 United Way: Our Community Place
 Humankind Water Humankind Water

2001 establishments in Virginia
Buildings and structures completed in 1928
Buildings and structures in Harrisonburg, Virginia
Community centers in the United States
Event venues in Virginia