Mennonite Weekly Review

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Patchwork Central has been a fixture in the Washington Avenue neighborhood here for 32 years.

Melissa Dyck, right, a Mennonite Voluntary Service volunteer, serves lunch to Darlene Blagg at the River City Food Co-op in Evansville, Ind., part of the Patchwork Central community. — Photo by Cara Rufenacht/MMN

Today it is an intentional community worshiping together, providing children’s programs and running a food pantry, as well as leading other ministries.

“For me, finding Patchwork was finally finding a group of people who believed in the same things I did and who cared about social justice,” said Shawn Craddock, office manager at Patchwork. “It was finding a true community.”

Three couples from Emory University in Atlanta began Patchwork. Since 1988, the Patchwork community has welcomed Mennonite Voluntary Service participants to lead existing ministries and begin new ones.

“You can be part of the volunteer community here in Evansville, but there’s also this Patchwork community that you’re automatically a part of,” said Amy Rich, co-director of Patchwork with her husband, John, who came to Evansville as an MVS participant in 1997.

Current MVS participants Melissa Dyck of Winkler, Man., and Miriam Regier of Newton, Kan., have felt welcomed into the work and worship of the Patchwork community. Each week, members of the Patchwork community gather to share a meal and to worship together at the Patchwork Central Meetinghouse, where other ministries are hosted as well.

“I’ve experienced the community like a big blanket that wraps around you,” Regier said. “With both Melissa and I being new here we didn’t have a community right away, and Patchwork sort of just enveloped us in a very warm positive way.”

Each worship service includes the sharing of communion as a recommitment to the community and its shared purpose.

“Patchwork has helped broaden my definition of community and faith,” Dyck said. “It’s this group of folks who might never be friends in any other setting except here… . But they are very intentional about gathering and cultivating community with each other and in the neighborhood.”

Patchwork Central is a hub for people and programs in the Washington Avenue neighborhood, with children’s programs, a food bank, an HIV/AIDS clinic and other programs.