The rooms are bare and the walls need paint, but in the three-floor, 19th century Victorian home on Maple Avenue here, hope resides.The goal is for the first L’Arche community, comprising those with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their assistants, will come together here where they will share meals and engage in fellowship.
The L’Arche Merchantville community will not only be the first of its kind in New Jersey, but the first in the Delaware Valley, and the first between D.C. and Boston. Friends of L’Arche NJ seeks to expand and open several more homes in the next decade. “The key is building relationships, with those in the home, God and community,” said Sister Bonnie McMenamin, SSJ, on the board of Friends of L’Arche New Jersey and the Camden Diocesan co-director of Ministry With the Deaf and Persons with Disabilities, adding that the home is “faith-and-family based.” http://bit.ly/ABp21J
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