CLEVELAND HEIGHTS — With election day fast approaching, Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights is opening its church for its first No Strangers Club event.
The free event featuring live music, poetry, herbal tea, a reading room, connection games, and more is taking place on Election Day eve, Monday, Nov. 4, from 6 to 9 p.m.
Pastor Ryan Wallace and Kate Bouldin, director of youth and young adult faith formation, are part of the team that organized the gathering.
They said it’s meant to help people disconnect from their cell phones, social media, and 24-hour news cycle to have face-to-face conversations and get to know one another.
“It felt particularly relevant right now in this election season where we are— our country is more polarized than ever,” Bouldin said. “It's the idea that the work of justice, the work of connecting with one another and understanding one another's politics better is first done through relationships.”
Bouldin called it “de-strangering” others who may be different from you.
“Working to see another person as your neighbor rather than a stranger to better understand their perspectives and beliefs, even if they're really different from yours,” Bouldin said.
Several featured artists are participating, including Kevin Monaco, Isaiah Hunt and the Emergence Ensemble.
Various areas of the church will be set up for communal activities. Pastor Ryan Wallace said there will also be quiet spaces for people to pray, meditate and read.
"Part of the message we want to send is no matter what happens on Election Day and in the days and weeks and months after we are neighbors, we need to know one another, we need to care for one another,” Wallace said. “And that again, no matter what changes that doesn't change.”
The church has been doing community outreach with the goal of attracting a large number of people to the event who don’t have a connection to their church.
“We hope this is the beginning of many No Strangers Club gatherings and more of kind of a grassroots movement in our community to invest in the relationships with one another,” Wallace said.
