Our Vision, Goal and Objectives

You may not know that the parish building at 200 West High Street Piqua, Ohio was originally built in 1899. While this gives the sanctuary an awe-inspiring and splendid look and feel – the building does not lend itself to the community work needed to continue and grow.

We simply have run out of space in the existing building, and we must expand to more effectively serve those we are currently serving, and include additional programs needed by the community.

Reworking the existing structure would cost more money and still not meet our needs. We have therefore purchased the land adjoining the current building, and we are kicking off our Capital Campaign to fund Rachel’s Place.

This addition is intended to fulfill these needs:

The Food Pantry (an affiliate of Shared Harvest) currently serves 170+ households in the Piqua community. The pantry and delivery space is small and there is no loading dock for the monthly delivery truck. We have been asked by the community to expand the food pantry as our churches’ main outreach to the community; this will burden the current space even more.

Office Space for the Piqua Compassion Network. We need space for an office to administrate the efforts of the Piqua Compassion Network. This effort strives to provide a single point for those in need of social services. The program is designed to coordinate the services provided by the community and give individuals a single point of contact and information regarding what is available to them.

Dedicated Space for Adult Learning. At present we use our community hall area for our GED and adult literacy and re-entry programs. This area is not dedicated to this effort and therefore is not as effective as we would like it to be. We need to assign a permanent place so that it can be wired and equipped with computers and additional learning materials. We also plan to have an adult re-entry program to teach interviewing skills, job requirements and behaviors to those wanting to re-enter the workforce.

Educational Space for Children. Again, we have simply outgrown the current facility. Our Sunday school is a crowded area behind our adult learning classroom and we have a very inadequate nursery. We would like to use space in the new building for our administrative offices and convert the existing office space to the nursery so the children and parents can be close to the sanctuary during services. The new space will also allow us to have a more spacious and well equipped Sunday school area as well.

Improved Access. We need an elevator for those needing assistance with movement between floors. Adding this to the existing facility would be very expensive, but we could serve more people in all of our community outreach programs if they had access to all floors of the new building.