House Update: The renovations on the house will be completed this week!
Friends,
I am so excited! The renovations on the house will be completed this week! The accessible bathroom is beautiful. The new wider entrance to the kitchen and the large electric stove are wonderful. The basement bedrooms have lovely new floors, and more! The only thing that is left is painting. As the ceilings were scraped, re-mudded, and painted during the professional asbestos abatement process, this left a large white trim around many of the rooms. Therefore, we are painting with the help of volunteers.
As I walk around the L’Arche house and see the updates, I am filled with joy knowing that everyone, regardless of ability, will be able to enter the home and use the facilities. Prior these renovations, if someone used mobility aids or a wheelchair, they would have needed to be carried up the stairs into the home and into the bathroom when they needed to use it. However, with your generous support, we can now say that everyone is welcome and belongs at L’Arche NC! Thank you for making this possible.
We are now in the home stretch (pun intended) of welcoming our first Core Members and Assistants to live at this first L’Arche NC home. However, we are still in great need of your financial support. If you are unfamiliar with the Direct Support Professional (DSP) crisis across the U.S., I’d like to briefly explain more (if you’re already familiar, skip the next paragraph).
The DSP crisis in the U.S. is an urgent issue affecting many organizations like L’Arche. DSPs play a vital role in the lives of individuals with disabilities, yet they are often underpaid, leading to high turnover rates and staffing shortages. Medicaid reimbursements simply do not cover the true cost of providing quality, person-centered care. To ensure that we can recruit L’Arche Assistants and create a sustainable environment so that we can offer the compassionate, reliable support our community members deserve, we must raise additional funds to provide them with fair wages. This will help us attract and retain dedicated staff, ultimately enhancing the quality of care and stability for those we serve.
Over the next couple of months, we will begin the final steps of our licensing process, including hiring our Residential Care Manager and live-in and live-out Assistants. You’ve helped L’Arche North Carolina in our journey to purchase and renovate our first house. Will you join us once again to help us open the doors of this home?
If you’re read more
The Journey, by Boat
L’Arche means “the ark,” and I’ve discovered, in my time here, many of the ways that L’Arche is like a fantastic trip on a boat. In a recent homily I presented at one of our regular community chapel services, I asked everyone to think about a journey on a boat. Many of the responses were (excuse the nautical pun) “deeper” than they were at first glance. This seems to be a common theme at L’Arche. Most of the thoughts shared had to do with the people on the boat with us. Not everyone was happy about being cooped up on a boat in such close quarters for such a long journey. “We’ll have fun—if we don’t all kill each other first!,” one core member told me. My journey, and, I think, the journey of most people who spend time at L’Arche reflects this truth. Those we make relationships with on this “boat” do not always rub us the right way—and my time here at L’Arche was not been perfect. I arrived a basket of nerves, given responsibilities like helping people care for themselves, giving medications, cooking, cleaning, and read more
Letter from L’Arche
Dear Friend, It’s hard to imagine a life fueled by vulnerability. It seems that no place in our world is free from the drive of competition and perfection. But Joni can tell you a different story. Joni contracted encephalitis as a child. The fever led to irreversible brain damage. She was left unable to speak and finds it difficult to physically navigate her world.Because Joni lives in a L’Arche community, the limitations on her body and the way her mind works are part of her gift. When I was an assistant, living in the daily rhythms of life with Joni and the other “core members” of our home, I learned how to slow down. If we rushed through routines or meals Joni could sense my irritation. Like all of us, Joni wants a life where she is seen as beloved, not someone to rush past on my way to better things.L’Arche is a place where attention to gentleness thrives. Since its founding in 1964, L’Arche has steadily grown as a “sign of peace” around the world. From Uganda to Hebron to Northern Ireland, homes that thrive on the mutual gifts read more
