"Do you think anyone would notice if an alien ship came and took our church away?" This was the question that prompted Jubilee Mennonite Church to do something in their community.

Jubilee Mennonite Church felt that though they had a great community within the church they needed to do something to impact their larger community. 

To start getting active in the community the church hired a community ministry pastor, Anna Marie Geddert, who is now the acting director of the Community Resource Center. Geddert said the vision for this organization is, "We want to be known as the resource center in North Kildonan, where other churches, other businesses, individuals, can come and participate in Community Roots."

The Community Roots Resource Center launch party took place yesterday, celebrating the official opening of the program and was a great success.

Geddert said the church is located in the lowest income area of North Kildonan, an area with lots of "newcomer families, indigenous families and single moms." Many members of these families came out in support of the organization yesterday.

The organization started thinking about how they would like to help the community a few years ago and came up with a plan. They surveyed the community and started talking to other organizations around them to find out what people loved about the neighborhood and what people wanted to see improved.

Some of the initiatives that have come out of this survey have been Community grounds, Community Kitchen, a clothing fair, J club family drop-in, Get better together, AA meetings, EA meetings, Mens cooking, a program called Wildflowers, and a community garden.

Community Grounds is a coffee shop open on Tuesdays. The goal of the shop is to "get to know each other as a lot of the people who come feel like they have a place to belong," says Geddert.

Community Kitchen is a place where people can come and learn how to make nutritious meals to take home to their families. This has been the longest running project out of Jubilee and Community Roots Resource Center and the connections and friendships built here also started another event, a clothing fair!

"On Thursday evenings we have between 20-40 kids and some parents come and do some activities together, right now we are doing the theme of kindness," this is a program where families can learn and play together says Geddert.

Get better together is a program by the wellness institute, "helping people cope with chronic pain or chronic issues like arthritis of high blood pressure."

"You can see wildflowers growing through concrete," Geddert says as she tries to explain the power of the wildflower program, "and they are resilient, so how do we (as women) be resilient."

The community garden kickoff took place last week with 30 gardeners form the neighborhood teaching and planting seeds the community can watch grow and care for this summer.

This organization is passionate about their community and is ready to both learn from and teach anyone who walks through its doors.