At a special meeting Feb. 21 at Faith UMC in Westside, the Lewes Rehoboth Association of Congregations Board and member representatives voted unanimously to welcome Seaside Jewish Congregation and the Unitarian Universalists of Southern Delaware as members and ministry partners. The vote comes one month after member representatives voted overwhelmingly to expand LRAC from an exclusively Christian organization to an interfaith coalition of ministry partners in the Cape Henlopen School District.
Representatives from both congregations have attended LRAC meetings in the past as observers, and their members have volunteered alongside LRAC members at the New Life Thrift Shop, the Community Resource Center, and have partnered with LRAC church ministries. The February 21 vote formalizes that long-standing partnership. As members of LRAC, both congregations name two representatives who will vote annually on Board members and serve on LRAC committees.
Seaside Jewish Community is active in bringing healing and hope to our community and partners with neighboring Epworth UMC in a Food and Love weekly soup kitchen ministry. During the meeting, Anita Smulyan, one of Seaside Jewish Community’s member representatives who had attended previous LRAC meetings as an observer, gave thanks to God for the vote.
The Unitarian Universalists of Southern Delaware congregation brings a long history of outreach and service to the community to LRAC, most recently hosting Peace Week presenatations and an environmental summit. Their pastor Rev. Heather Rion Starr is particularly interested to understand how LRAC works with other local and state-wide organizations, Family Promise, Community Resource Center, and the Housing Alliance of Delaware with whom she and her congregation have partnered in the past, knowing people locally who are really struggling with being precariously housed whose situations weigh on her mind and heart.
Besides volunteers, LRAC provides the building for the Community Resource Center and a grant of $275,000 in 2023, up from $240,000 in 2022. In 2022, LRAC granted Family Promise of Southern Delaware $60,000, which qualified the organization for a matching grant of $10,000. LRAC raises funds to grant ministry partners through their New Life Thrift Shop on Route 1.