WHAT: St. Luke’s United Methodist Church will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony for The Garden at Gethsemane United Methodist Church in the Sharpstown/Gulfton area of Southwest Houston. This new community center will holistically serve youth and young adults ages 11-24 through a multitude of programs.
The Garden, a two-story, 52,000 square-foot community center is designed around the interests and needs of one of the most diverse, and underserved, communities in Houston. It will also house several community nonprofit organizations which provide needed social services for area residents. The facility officially opens June 17 with summer hours of noon – 7 p.m.
Components of The Garden include:
- The Studio (ballet, hip-hop, contemporary, jazz, lyrical, tap, yoga, pilates, Zumba
- The Gallery (painting, sculpting, digital art, photography, social media, videography, podcasting)
- The Court (drumline, karate, basketball, pickleball, volleyball, tennis, college and career activities, health fairs
- Ruach – a place for Sunday Youth Worship and spoken word, poetry slam, drama and more, during the week
- Signature programs (Project Heirloom, youth night, life groups, youth board)
WHEN: Thursday, June 6, 2024, at 11 a.m.
WHERE: Gethsemane United Methodist Church, 6856 Bellaire Blvd., Houston, 77074
WHO: Speakers for the ceremony include:
- Council Member for District J (Gulfton and Sharpstown) Edward Pollard
- Dr. Tom Pace, Senior Pastor St. Luke’s United Methodist Church
- Erika Ngo and Alexander Lopez, The Garden Youth Advisory Board
- Ryan Villarreal, Executive Director of The Garden
PARKING: There is parking in the church parking lot.
ONSITE MEDIA CONTACT: Carol Brejot, 713-503-3885
Google maps link here.# # #
Link to photo here
Courtesy of Jackson & Ryan Architects
History
St. Luke’s is a United Methodist church established in 1945, meeting at Lamar High School before its first church buildings were built at 3471 Westheimer. Always an outreach focused church, in 2008, St. Luke’s merged with Gethsemane Methodist at 6856 Bellaire, in the heart of the Gulfton area, where Gethsemane church had been located since the late 1950s. Since then, St. Luke’s has concentrated much of its outreach efforts on the needs of its Gulfton community. The Gulfton/Sharpstown area is the most richly diverse neighborhood in the most diverse city in the U.S. Its population has shifted over time from workers who migrated to Houston from the Northeast and Midwest regions during the ‘60s and ‘70s oil boom, to a largely immigrant and refugee neighborhood that became an area of concentrated poverty after the oil bust of the ‘80s. St. Luke’s has well-established relationships with the partner non-profit organizations that will locate in the new Community Center, organizations that have been at work in the area for years. Co-locating their operations will amplify and elevate the work of each of these entities and allow them to better respond to the needs of the community. St. Luke’s owns the land where the Community Center will be built.