Our Mission and Values
Creating communities of equity, excellence, and empowered residents.
The Resurrected Community Development Corporation strives to work in fellowship with residents in developing the skills and resources—spiritual and secular—required to create an educationally, financially, and morally empowered community. Together, we are guided by the common pursuit of a secure, healthy, and safe lifestyle.
We Believe…
- Unconditional respect is necessary in all human interactions
- People have the capacity to change and solve their own problems when given the necessary support and conditions
- To support people to change, one must meet people where they are and build mutually respectful and trusting relationships through open, honest, and consistent discourse
- Community is a group of people who are consciously committed to going beyond their personal biases, attitudes, judgments, and opinions to achieve a shared vision that would otherwise be impossible
- Bias around issues of race, class, gender, and language are serious issues facing our society and deeply embedded within all informal and formal
organizational systems that are usually not discussed. Talking and facilitating conversation about them is necessary, not to lay blame, but to figure out better ways to improve systems, community well-being, and educate our children. - It is necessary to model the improvement of practice through ongoing inquiry, honest reflection, critical review of performance, and corrective feedback
Our History
Founded in 2011 by Rev. Dr. Gregory J. Edwards as Resurrected Life Community Church’s faithful response to address the ongoing issues of educational apartheid and economic disparities due to racism, poverty, structural inequities, and institutional oppression, Resurrected Community Development Corporation (RCDC) is a 501 (c) non-profit established to advance the social, educational, economic, and physical well-being of individuals, children, and families from all walks of life living in the city of Allentown and the greater Lehigh Valley.
Resurrected Life Children’s Academy
The James Lawson Freedom Schools
Vision and Primary Purposes
The vision of RCDC is to create communities of excellence, equity, and empowered residents within the city of Allentown and beyond. As the only Community Development Corporation in Allentown and the surrounding area founded, led, and managed by persons of Black African heritage, RCDC unequivocally believes and understands that racially diverse and economically challenged neighborhoods thrive when those residing in them have equal access of opportunity to educational excellence, economic self-sufficiency, civic engagement, and the bare essentials of safe affordable housing, food, and healthcare. To this end, RCDC has two primary purposes:
- To enrich the lives of residents within the surrounding area by promoting community, civic engagement, academic and educational excellence, economic development, and self-sufficiency;
- To provide services, training, and other opportunities for personal growth and self-development leading to the improvement of community infrastructure, standards of living, and quality of life.