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Welcome to the Reedley Peace Center

The Reedley Peace Center meets in the Fellowship Hall of the First Mennonite Church, on 'L' street between 12th and 13th streets in Reedley, California (driving directions).

Meetings are held Friday evenings, beginning with a potluck at 6:30, and the program following (around 7:15 PM).

Misson Statement

The Reedley Peace Center provides a forum for those in our community striving for peace in our society. The Peace Center encourages individual and collective peacemaking efforts as a way to foster an atmosphere of hope, transformation, and reconciliation among all people, both locally and globally.

To attain this mission, we commit ourselves to the following:
  1. We welcome people of all faiths, religions, creeds to join us in our search for peaceful solutions to local, national, and international conflicts and dilemmas
  2. We believe that nonviolence is a viable and necessary response to the conflicts that occur at all levels of society, from personal to global
  3. We will provide a community of hope and healing for all people looking for alternative solutions to conflict
  4. Finally, we will encourage each other to have fun.

Description

The Reedley Peace Center is comprised of many people throughout the community of Reedley who share strong convictions about the treatment of people around the world as well as in our local community. The catalyst of the organization's genesis was the growing rhetoric for invasion of Iraq.

Our members came to a collective decision that we could not be content just to study and discuss our convictions - we needed to find ways to more actively pursue paths toward peace and justice. Our organization has weekly meetings to keep informed and to find ways to help bring peace and justice to our community. We have held candlelight walks, displayed public meditations & prayer vigils, convened public protests, and sponsored student organizations. We have had a wide range of speakers at our meetings, including peace activists, Christian Peacemaker Team members, workers from Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Vietnam, Mexico, Cuba, Columbia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Latin America, several African nations, and other people with compelling messages about world peace and justice. We have also had speakers from local bands of the Choinumne Yokut Indians and from people working with immigrant farm workers, as well as farm workers, themselves.

Recent themes include the role of globalization in justice issues, environmental issues, racism, homosexuality, abortion, military recruiting, war tax resistance, the evolution/intelligent design debate, the economics of peace and justice, hunger and poverty issues, fair trade, and immigration issues. We have also listened to speakers from several religious faiths.

Activities

Weekly Meetings

Every Friday evening RPC meets at First Mennonite Church Fellowship Hall located on L Street between 12th and 13th streets (driving directions). The meeting begins at 6:30 PM with a shared meal. The program begins at 7 PM. Programs feature speakers, videos, dramas, music, and more. Please refer to the Peace Center Calendar for details.

Monthly Peace Vigil

On the third Friday of the month RPC holds a peace vigil from 5-6 PM at the corner of Reed and Manning Avenues under the Reedley College marquee.

Annual Retreat


Students for Peace

RPC sponsors a peace club on the Reedley High School campus.

Victim Offender Reconciliation Program

(VORP) for cases in the Reedley area and at Reedley High School. See the Victim Offender Reconciliation Program of the Central Valley website for an introduction to the VORP program.

Jesse Morrow Mountain Advocacy

See the Friends of Jesse Morrow Mountain website for more information.

Topics

Description of Reedley Peace Center

Reedley Peace Center was begun in October of 2002. It grew out of a Sunday morning discussion group at First Mennonite Church in Reedley. The group had recently completed studies of Jim Juhnke's "The Missing Peace" and Walter Wink's "The Powers That Be." We came to a collective decision that we could no longer be content just to study and discuss our convictions - we needed to find ways to more actively pursue paths toward peace and justice.

Prior to the invasion of Iraq we undertook our first action by organizing candlelight walks down the main street of Reedley in opposition to the war. There were five of these walks in all. The largest drew 60 walkers. These walks always ended in sharing and meditation in the City Park across from municipal government offices. In conservative Reedley, there was much objection to our protest and antipathy toward our group.

When the war began, we stopped walking but continued praying and sharing. The park meetings were now followed by informational videos and speakers at First Mennonite Church. In early summer 2003 we stopped meeting in the park, but we have continued our meetings each Friday.

We have had a wide range of speakers, including peace activists, former Christian Peacemaker Team members, workers from Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Vietnam, Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Latin America, and several African nations, and others with compelling messages about world peace and justice. We have also had speakers from local bands of the Choinumne Yokut Indians and from people working with immigrant farm workers, as well as farm workers, themselves. Recent themes include the role of globalization in justice issues, environmental issues, racism, homosexuality, abortion, military recruiting, war tax resistance, the evolution/intelligent design debate, the economics of peace and justice, hunger and poverty issues, fair trade, and immigration issues. We have also listened to speakers from several religious faiths.

We have supported the struggle of the small family farm and resisted the dominance of large corporations and of corporate media.

We have sponsored a Students for Peace club at Reedley High School. Students from this club have presented inspiring programs at the Peace Center. Several college students have also presented programs about their college related peace activities and we support the peace and justice efforts of young people in every way we can. The Peace Center has worked with the Students for Peace Club members as they planned and implemented their counter-recruiting campaign on the high school campus during the last four school years. One of the shared activities in preparation for the counter-recruitment week each spring is a workshop on nonviolent action, which is held at the Peace Center.

Additional outreach activities are political letter writing, co-sponsoring the Celebration of the Small Farm, co-sponsoring and participating in other meetings and actions with Fresno peace groups.

Many in our group have served terms in other countries with Mennonite Central Committee (as material aid workers and as teachers) and many volunteer large amounts of time in local MCC programs such as the local World Handcrafts store and the Nearly New shop. Several have volunteered with Christian Peacemaker Teams. Some have worked with Mennonite Disaster Service, rebuilding homes and restoring damaged property.

We have offered training in conflict resolution through VORP (Victim/Offender Reconciliation Program) and several in our group are VORP mediators. We have also served as mediators of conflict between students at Reedley High School. We are beginning work with and support the new Chief of Police in Reedley as he begins an innovative restorative justice program in our town.

We have sent individuals to peace related conferences as delegates and as speakers.

In the spring of 2007 we began holding street corner protests near Reedley College, out of concern about the escalation of the Iraq War and the growing threat of a military strike of Iran. We have continued these protests one day each month since then.

Several of our members have taken an active role in the protest of planned intensive mining of aggregate near Kings River and Jesse Morrow Mountain (near Reedley).

Members of our group have facilitated interviews by a historical research team of local Japanese people who were sent to internment camps during World War II and of local residents who managed and maintained their property during the internment.

In the fall of 2008, we set up a week long Hiroshima-Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Exhibit from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in downtown Reedley, and we have since presented this exhibit at several local schools.

We hold an annual retreat. Twice it has been at Independence on the east side of the Sierra, and four times at the St. Nicholas Retreat grounds in the nearby foothills.

Many of our members have Mennonite background, but we try to be a non-denominational group, and include some peoples of no religious faith. Our average attendance hovers between 30 and 45 (summer a little less). Current e-mailings go out to 200+ addresses and there are several other members not on that list. Our average age is over 50.