A special congregational meeting was held on Sunday, April 6 to vote on changing our name from “Northeast Community Lutheran Church” to “Grace Lutheran Church of Northeast Minneapolis.” The name change passed unanimously. This new name orients us firmly in God’s grace and aligns our name more directly with Grace Center, the community center project that we started back in 2010. The new name will be officially introduced and begin to be used on Sunday, May 4, on the occasion of our congregation’s 7th anniversary.

A major transformation of the massive “sea of asphalt” surrounding our building took place during the month of November. A generous grant from the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization (MWMO) along with other Grace Center Funding sources allowed us to remove almost half of the asphalt area and replace it with rain gardens, bio swales, landscaping, grass turf, and dedicated parking. We installed a shorter decorative fence with gates in place of the six-foot-high chain link fence and the large backstop fences in the corners. The west parking lot on the 5th street side of the building will be partially regraded and repaved. Some of the landscaping has been installed, but more will follow when the weather warms in the Spring.

Completion of our kitchen is complete and we will be able to make full use of it for our September 28, 2013 Community Dinner. We are looking forward to using “real dishes” and expanding our cooking equipment beyond roasters and outdoor grills. Our kitchen has been under renovation throughout the summer of 2013. Our church has been without a working kitchen since moving into Grace Center in July of 2010. In our building’s former life as Holland elementary school, the kitchen lacked cooking equipment. (The school district operated a centralized kitchen that did all of the cooking for the schools. Food was sent out in plastic trays or bags to be kept chilled or warm.) When our church moved into the building the kitchen consisted of two small sinks, warming racks and cupboards. Refinancing of the original loan that provided for the purchase and renovation of Grace Center made upgrades to the kitchen (and heating/cooling improvements) possible. The renovation has also included installation of a new walk-in refrigerator. The Little Kitchen Food Shelf was awarded a $7,000 grant for the purchase. The walk-in fridge will enable proper and adequate storage of the abundant produce donated by neighbors, the Garden Gleaning Project, and grown on-site in the Grace Center raised bed gardens. Congratulations to Food Shelf Manager Jennifer Schultz who worked hard on the grant application.