Love Has No Walls: CFS Finds a New Home

CFS has found a new home located at 322 W. 6th St. PHOTO BY KHALED KHALILI.

BY KHALED KHALILI.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

On Oct. 29, the staff of the Center for Faith and Service (CFS) were asked to evacuate the building that the Center had resided in for the last two years. During a routine inspection, Westminster’s Plant-Ops had found structural issues with the building’s foundations. And with the help of experts, the center’s home on West 7th Street was deemed unsafe for use.

---

For the past five weeks, the offices of the Chaplain, Community Engagement, Intercultural Engagement, and Remley Women’s Center had found temporary homes in Hunter Activity Center (HAC) as well as the Hazel wing of Reeves Library.

Members of the Office of Student Life, Residential Life and Westminster’s Cabinet started embarking on a campus-wide search for a new home for CFS. According to the Director of CFS, Kiva Nice-Webb, the goal of the search was to find a place that could help in “replicating the same cozy and welcoming feel that CFS had always offered.” As a result, the building that was known in the past as Micha House seemed to be the wisest choice. With a few repairs and some deep-cleaning sessions, the house at 322 W. 6th St. was ready to start its transformation into the new CFS.

Westminster’s Resident Chaplain, Keller Hawkins, expressed her excitement for all the opportunities the new and “central” location for CFS will bring. Hawkins discussed how the new location might open the door for new projects and chances to connect with the bigger Fulton community, like the possibility of building a “large labyrinth in the backyard for prayer and meditation.”

The new location offers the same number of rooms as that of the old one, which will allow the Westminster community to cook a meal in its kitchen, hold a meditation session in the prayer space, visit with the center’s staff and student workers, study in one of its corners, hold club and group meetings, or simply find comfort on one of the Center’s couches.

The center officially opened its doors at an open-house event on Friday, Dec. 7, to celebrate the move and welcome everyone back to CFS. Nice-Webb said the event was intended to be a chance for everyone to “honor all the memories created in the old location if they choose to do so, as well as be a space to share and hear about all the different ideas and hopes for the new location.”

CFS plans on resuming its old operational hours: 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on Friday, and 12 p.m.-5 p.m. on Sunday.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.