Revere Thomas (8) and Jaxon Love (11) play checkers in the park adjacent to the new Mourning Hope Grief Center.
EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Ella Ford (left) helps Logan Haney, 6, make an origami crane at Saturday's Party in the Park event marking the opening of the Mourning Hope Grief Center.
EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Finley Pederson (6) slides out of the bounce house while Pam Dinneen waits at the bottom to help her off the slide.
EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Anna Johnson (right) helps Emma Fargo, 6, make an origami crane on Saturday.
EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Origami cranes hang from the gazebo on Saturday outside the new Mourning Hope Grief Center.
EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
The new Mourning Hope Grief Center includes space for other nonprofits.
Mourning Hope needed more space and the West A neighborhood needed more services, and on Saturday, all involved could celebrate a partnership with great promise.
Mourning Hope, a grief support network for bereaved children and families in Lincoln, opened its new building at 1311 S. Folsom St. this weekend. It's a long-anticipated great space for the grief center but also provides a home for other nonprofits.
Located across from the Willard Community Center, Mourning Hope Executive Director Carly Runestad said the building helps to transform the area around Schroeder Park into a nonprofit campus, connecting the West A neighborhood to needed social services. On Saturday, Mourning Hope hosted a "Party in the Park" during which families could get information from nonprofits while also enjoying a bounce house, a DJ and other activities and games.Â
“This neighborhood has been really welcoming and inviting about us being in this space," Runestad said.Â
Several organizations have plans for work in and around the new Mourning Hope building, including Lutheran Family Services, Community Crops and Lincoln Parks and Recreation.Â
Much of this work will be focused in the West A community because it lacks adequate access to social services, said Tyler Hale, community engagement coordinator for Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska.Â
"It's separated by Salt Creek and the bridges from downtown," he said, "and if you're coming from the core of Lincoln, I think a lot of people don't know much about it."Â
Hale said the hope is that the area's organizations can work as a tight-knit network, connecting those in need with each other's resources, and he was complimentary of the work being done at Mourning Hope.Â
Mourning Hope made the move to the new location primarily because it required more space, Runestad said. They were formerly housed in a 110-year-old Tudor home with no air conditioning, and the group had to put bereaved families on a waiting list for months due to a lack of space.Â
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But the new location has space to spare for other nonprofits while still containing several rooms for kids to heal and grow in, including an art room, a game room, two rooms for teens and a mock hospital room with equipment donated by Bryan Health for kids to process their grief in.Â
Outside, Community Crops is building rentable garden stalls for community members to use for a small fee, according to Megan Baker, garden program coordinator.
Response to the organization's other 11 gardens across Lincoln this year has been strong, she said, as people are itching to get back outside and spend time with their neighbors after COVID-19 isolation.Â
These new additions to the West A neighborhood join the Willard Community Center, which has been serving the community since 1980, providing everything from early childhood development to a space for the Nebraska Swordfighters Guild.
"We're just trying to be all things to everybody in the community," Janelle Soderling, executive director of the center, said.Â
While West A has been an overlooked part of town for many years — lacking typical community building blocks like a library or pool — the community center has long been a way for neighbors to connect, and the addition of the nonprofits' campus will allow them to do more, she said.Â
"With all of us working together, I think we're going to have a lot more events," she said.Â
Ella Ford (left) helps Logan Haney, 6, make an origami crane at Saturday's Party in the Park event marking the opening of the Mourning Hope Grief Center.