Common Work

Reba Properties was formed in 2010 from our two management businesses called Reba Apartments and Reunion Property Management. Both businesses were born from Reba Place Fellowship’s desire to provide common work and community engagement.

In 2004 Reba Place Fellowship decided to use its connection with Mennonite and Amish friends in Northern Indiana to provide a retail outlet for Amish furniture. Reba’s vision included providing quality products at good prices, paying producers fairly for their work, and combining what is simple and functional with what is elegant and beautiful.

RPF Member Hilda Carper began making greeting cards under the name Community Creations since the mid-90’s. Several other Reba artists are joining in on the effort, selling pottery, drawings, illustrations, and other commissioned art through Community Creations. Anne Gavitt’s Pet Portrait business is now off the ground and running – www.annegavitt.com.

The Reba Services Office provides business office administration and bookkeeping and accounting services to RPF as well as other affiliated non-profits.

Over the course of Reba’s history, the need to purchase housing became evident in order to meet the needs of members and to stabilize an ethnically and economically diverse neighborhood; by the early to mid 1990’s the inaccessibility of affordable housing in Southeast Evanston was a growing concern. In 1995, Reba Place Church members invited community minded neighbors to form a broad-based not-for-profit corporation to extend the mission of affordable housing.

Like many monastic communities, common work is an important part of our life together at Reba. Members have collectively worked to maintain our buildings and property over the years while also showing love and support by assisting other community members in moving from one residence to another.