Light in 2020
This year wasn’t what any of us expected. It was only a few days after Renovare’s ninth performance of 2020 in early March that COVID-19 required us to cancel all our spring events and prevented us from putting new performances on the calendar. Being as young as Renovare is, we didn’t have much previously recorded material to share online, as many ensembles did. Furthermore, many of the people we serve - those in prison, without homes, or otherwise impacted by poverty - don’t have the ability to access online content or even connect to a Zoom call.
As disruptive as the pandemic has been, it hasn’t been Renovare’s only sizable challenge this year. Family circumstances and competing professional priorities resulted in two Renovare team members stepping down from their positions, violinist Ann Yu over the summer, and spoken word/hip hop artist Christian Singleton earlier this month. Both remain good friends and supporters of Renovare’s mission, and we hope to collaborate with them from time to time in the future.
This has been a hard year, and it’s easy to feel discouraged.
But as we peer through the darkness of this year to look for light, there are things worth celebrating:
We shared music with well over 300 people before the pandemic hit in a wide variety of settings.
We were able to share music with with dozens more in outdoor, socially distanced concerts and church services over the summer.
We made recordings for our friends at the Cosgrove Center (a hunger/day drop-in center), and collected almost 300 puzzles, games and DVDs to help the women at the Northeast Reintegration Center pass the time in the absence of volunteer programs or visitation. (The picture above is only a fraction of what we took to the prison!)
We’ve taught violin, viola, and cello classes weekly to a dozen men at the Grafton Correctional Institute since we were allowed to resume classes via videoconferencing in September. Amidst the additional limitations and stressors of life in prison during a pandemic, being able to make music and receive encouragement means so much to them.
Our Founder/Director Rebecca Shasberger is halfway through an Executive Graduate Certificate in Social Entrepreneurship, Cultural Agency, Community Development, Business Management & Teaching Artistry with the Ivy league-curated Global Leaders Program. This yearlong program is equipping her with an abundance of new tools to improve her leadership of Renovare.
We’ve spent countless hours reflecting, praying, planning, and reimagining the scope of what Renovare’s work could be.
Finally, we were thrilled to welcome violinist Lalia Mangione to the Renovare team this fall. She’s already proven to be a tremendous partner in this work, and will be able to do even more once she relocates to Cleveland in less than two weeks!
We're grateful to God and our generous supporters that these things could happen.
In this Advent season, we remember and anticipate the one who brought light, true light, into the world. Amidst the challenges of this year, and the challenges that undoubtedly lie ahead, we are choosing to follow the light in continuing to pursue that which God has given us to steward. His vision of bridging divided communities and creating restorative experiences through music, stories, and relationships will not be overcome by the dark.
Thanks to the pandemic, we can’t tell you exactly what our activities in 2021 will look like. But we can say that we are committed to this work, and that God has been faithful to help us pursue it amidst setbacks. We’ll continue to build relationships with partner organizations, design performances, and find ways to share music in ways that pursue wholeness for individuals and communities, regardless of the challenges that the new year may bring. To join Jesus in bringing his light to our broken world demands nothing less.
If you would like to join us in this journey, head over to our Support Page to learn more about the ways that you can partner with us.
The four weeks of Advent are almost over, but in many ways it seems that this has been an entire year of Advent. (If you’re not familiar with Advent, check out this post from last December). The brokenness of our world has never been more evident, and everyone wants things to be better. Here at Renovare, we trust that God is indeed restoring all of creation, even if it's hard to see at times. Enjoy this short video of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" as we long together for all things to be made right.