For a long time, our church has dreamed of a way we could engage the community more. It began with a relationship with Northern Rivers and Paige Elementary School. We knew that God had entrusted these folks to us to love and care for and so for the past 3 years we have actively engaged them and created wonderful relationships in our community.

Part of our vision was creating a space the community could share with us, a place where families could celebrate new life, birthdays, community events, neighborhood association meetings; a place where Northern Rivers and Paige could step away from their campuses and play. A place for us to host community cookouts, trunk-or-treats, worship services, food truck Fridays, farmers' markets, and so much more. We are big on dreaming and now we get to move towards making those dreams a reality.

Earlier this year, the Upstate New York District of the Church of the Nazarene chose to partner with our church in both our O.N.E. (Outreach Neighborhood Enrichment) ministry to Northern Rivers and Paige and also in building our new Community Pavilion! What an exciting new chapter for Schenectady Church of the Nazarene and the Woodlawn Neighborhood. We were awarded a $20,000.00 missional grant that we applied for through the district and also found out we have been awarded the Foundation for Evangelism grant for $5,000.00. More grants are to be written and more community partners are to be worked with before this project comes to fruition, but we are so excited for the days ahead!