The Ultimate Center for Family Culture

By Peter Searby

Riverside, of course, is focused on providing imaginative and adventurous programming for youth, but did you know that our mission actually is threefold? Beyond ReImagining Education, we also want to serve young adults…ReFocusing them on finding their gift and calling. And the third prong is to ReNew the Culture by offering inspiring events and a place to gather for the entire family.

This third pillar is so important in this technological age of impersonal communication and constant noise. We need to come together to celebrate the true, the good, and the beautiful through music, food, and friendship.

Over the past ten years, opportunities for family events have come up both organically and intentionally at Riverside, ranging from the low-key, like coffee house open mic nights, to the extravagant Bilbo Baggins Birthday party.

We’ve had dances of all kinds, from barn dances, to swing dances, to what we called a Gemutlichkeit dance, which tied into an original musical set in Germany (Over the Hills and Far Away).

We’ve celebrated holidays with winter festivals and an All Hallow’s Eve walk. And we’ve had countless music gatherings from the summer RiverFest to folk concerts to Irish sessions.

One of the largest hindrances to offering these experiences to our immediate and broader community is the need to find and rent spaces to host them. This is not impossible, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to do with the growing number who would like to attend and the fact that locations are becoming more strict with their rules. There are less and less places that are friendly to large families.

This is why it is vital for Riverside to have a property of its own. With our own land, we could become a center for culture like no other. It would serve our existing community, but it also would allow us to offer space for other organizations and families to use. The result would be that instead of having to spend money to secure places for our activities, we would be earning income by providing a venue for others to use. This would help us to sustain and renovate the buildings and the land.

Festival

Many of you know that for all too short a time, we were using a property in Big Rock. During that period we got a glimpse of what could be with regards to becoming a center for cultural renewal.

There were some practical benefits for starters. Nearly 600 people from Tutorial and Studio families gather each year for our Bilbo Baggins Birthday Party. When we had the land, we discovered that we could pave a path through the trees for the forest walk Lord of the Rings vignettes that could be used repeatedly. When we have to use temporary locations, we have to reinvent the wheel each year. We also were able to begin the set-up process in the weeks and days leading up to the event, which significantly reduced the burden on the Riverside Tutors and volunteers.  

Likewise, we were able to build an outdoor stage for our summer theatre production. Having a location like this significantly reduces the cost of a show because theaters are very expensive to rent. And it makes it a lot easier to accommodate a large cast with lots of children.  We also were able to use our woodworking/machine shop to build the set.

Other cultural events included an All Hallows Eve with a barn dance, country barbeque, and a Story Walk. And this was no ordinary walk. The Tutorial boys worked in the weeks leading up to the event to create scenes using jack-o-lanterns to bring alive the tales of Biblical heroes like David and martyrs like St. Lawrence. It was spooky, edifying, and inspirational all at the same time. Most importantly, it provided a faith-filled prayerful cultural alternative for families during what is often a complicated time of year. 

Christmas in the Country was another wonderful festival we were able to bring families. We prayed for snow and received a blizzard, which made the temperatures quite frosty, but we persevered. There were sled dogs, a Christmas tree maze, Christmas crafts, sledding, puppet shows, and a production of A Christmas Carol. 

Our vision for a new property includes being able to move our annual events, like Bilbo and RiverFest, to our own land, and also to bring about other festivals like we did with All Hallows Eve and Christmas in the Country. 

Event Barn

One of the central components of a Riverside property will be an Event Barn. This type of gathering space holds so much potential for our immediate community and for bringing in additional sources of income. 

We could use it to host a variety of different types of music events. For starters, this would make RiverFest rainproof. Those of you who attended in 2024 know what a blessing this would be to have a ready-made backup plan for poor weather. 

But with an event barn, we could also hold a series of more laid-back events throughout the year. There could be

swing and barn dances; folk and bluegrass jam sessions, singalongs, and songwriter circles. We could bring back the coffee house open mic nights, where the community can show off talent. And, we could even provide a venue for local bands to come and play.

Family Adventure

Riverside has offered Father-Son camping in the past and would love to be able to do this again.

This would be made so much more feasible to do with a property of our own. But having our own space also would open up the potential to host  many other activities for fathers and sons to experience together. Mother-daughter camps and programs also could become a reality, as well as many adventures for the whole family to experience together.

Our dream is to have a property with some sort of body of water on it. In Big Rock, for example, we had a pond, and families came together to build a beach and a dock. Afterward, it was used for boating, swimming, and fishing.

We would have a machine shop and a woodworking shop on site. Both could be used for structured classes, we envision that Riverside families also could use these facilities for their own projects.

There would be a frontier area with an archery and shooting range for these important outdoor sports. In BigRock, journeymen came and on their own initiative began building an outdoor obstacle course on which to train for races. 

The house/lodge could be used for retreats, fiber arts and sewing classes, cooking demonstrations, and, game

nights…the possibilities are endless.

Gardening and Farming

The Tutorial and Studio children could have opportunities to learn about growing food and animal husbandry. We look forward to having goats and chickens. We began this process at Big Rock where Tutorial built garden boxes and sowed seeds. We also had ducks and even built them a home out on the pond.

With our own property, we also could have room for a community garden, for example. Families could have their own plot for vegetables, herbs, and flowers. 

We could have a pumpkin farm perhaps to prepare for our All Hallows Eve festival, and maybe we could have an area designated for growing Christmas trees. Or an orchard where people could plant fruit trees in honor of their loved ones. 

The point of this all is that with a property Riverside has the chance to become a family center for cultural renewal and hope. By combining the three tenets of our mission in one location, we can offer something completely different from anything that is out there.

If you’d like to read more about the vision for land, head to our new website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Home for the Ducks in Big Rock

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pippin and the Frogs, A Band of Journeymen and Women

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tutorial Boys Prepare for All Hallows Eve