Community Transformation & Outreach
Racial Awareness
Meet at the table for Reconciliation
We meet over a covered dish for honest conversation between the races. Men and women are welcome to join us!
Women's Outreach
Pride for Parents Christmas Store
Each Christmas season, we provide parents in our community an opportunity to purchase gifts for their children in a way that fosters pride for the parents when giving gifts to their children.
Summer Camp 2020 was a monumental success and we look forward to building on that in the summer of 2021.
OUR MISSION
To create an environment of support and encouragement in an effort to dismantle racism and transform our city into a community that is inclusive of all people, regardless of race, gender, and socioeconomic status.
Our Executive Director
Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us ENCOURAGE ONE ANOTHER
For more than a decade, Reggie Edwards headed the women’s outreach at another local nonprofit organization. There she began a weekly “Mom’s Nite Out” for the mothers of children who attended a youth day camp. The group started with just two participants, but grew quickly as word spread to friends and neighbors.
Women wanted a place to unwind, share their struggles and encourage one another. This became the basis for “The Encouraging Place”, which was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) in 2008. Since then, women from all walks of life have come together to make new friends, hear an inspiring message, be built up and encouraged.
Regelyn “Reggie” Edwards is the Executive Director of The Encouraging Place, a non-profit ministry in Raleigh, NC created to serve women/families and work toward racial healing.
A Raleigh native, she attended Fayetteville State University and graduated from Justice Fellowship College of Theology with a Masters of Art in Ministry in 2005.
Reggie has over 25 years of experience working in inner city communities. She has impacted over 5,000 women through women’s empowerment programs and is a Certified Life Coach. She has led hundreds of men and women in a deeper understanding of race and racial reconciliation. Currently, Reggie Edwards serves on the Raleigh Organizing Against Racism (ROAR) Committee and a strong proponent of the Racial Equity Institute.
She joined Building Together Ministries in 1994, where she coordinated the FRIENDS (youth) mentoring program, the Women’s Outreach, the Racial Reconciliation Ministry & the Christian Community Development Outreach. Reggie admits that she learned all she knows about urban ministry while at Building Together. Another one of her passions is serving on missions teams to Haiti.
Our Board
JoAnne Barnes
Member
Mary Burr Edwards
Member
Vielka Gabriel
Member
Janet Gruchacz
Treasurer
Phillip Hoffman
Secretary
Rene Harris
Member
Dexter Hebert
Member
Laura Martin
Member
Broderick Rogers
Vice Chair
Jamie Rudd
Member
Deborah Wright
Board Chair