If the walls of 823 Reynolda could speak, they’d whisper messages of spirituality and of peace, of environmental stewardship and of tithing, of healing and of free tai chi.

“It’s starting to do what it was meant to do,” says owner Beverly Johnston, president of Blessings Project Foundation Inc. and owner of 823 Reynolda LLC, the space where the foundation resides. “I really have total faith in the concept that each bit of good that happens in the world creates more good.”

The truth is, 823 Reynolda seems to have a life of its own - a spirit that permeates the space and touches each sense, from the rich earth-toned murals hugging the walls, to sparkle lights that illuminate the dark blue center of the ceiling, to the barely audible trickling of a fountain in the front entryway.

Muralist Dan Hill painted the area with Johnston’s input, and distinctive treasures and architecture complement his work. For example, the stained-glass window that provides a gentle separation between the entryway and the main room came from Darryl’s Restaurant, and a set of columns and stairway to nowhere are finds Johnston has gathered along the way.

At first, antiques and tithing
Johnston bought the old building in December 2000 and intended to use it for an antiques store. Scars on the floor reveal where old Dr Pepper bottling machinery stood when the building was built in the 1940s. Later it became Parrish Tire, and it has been used by Planned Parenthood and as a flea market. In its most recent life, it was the West End Office Building, and the room was segmented for smaller offices to save on heating and cooling costs.

“I was buying it for the windows and brick walls,” Johnston says. “The inspector got on a ladder and pushed the drop ceiling aside. All I could see were his knees. He said, ‘Lady, have you been up here to see this?’ “

Although she thought he was going to tell her he’d found a problem, he instead said, ” ‘Well, I’m about to ring your chimes,’ ” Johnston recalls, laughing. Above the dropped ceiling arched the original tin from approximately 60 years before.

With this new space, Johnston planned to merge two of her passions. She enjoys antiques and has spent her lifetime collecting. In addition, she was a social worker in New York, and in the early 1980s was director of client and volunteer services for Crisis Control in Winston-Salem. She developed a keen sense of not only the need in the community, but also of just how much tended to fall between bureaucratic agency borders.

“That really is what gave me the desire to create something small that fills in the holes between the big social-services agencies and other targeted assistance groups, like the Experiment in Self Reliance and Medicaid - the things that are hard to categorize,” Johnston says.

From each sale at Blessings Antiques and Design LLC, she tithed or donated 10 percent to support other projects. “I was so sure I could create a new model for small business,” she says. She soon realized just how much time retail takes, and also acknowledged, “I don’t like retail.”

In her antiques shop’s early years, Johnston gave to such groups as AIDS Care Service, Doctors Without Borders, the Humane Society, Doberman Rescue, and Meals on Wheels. Her shop eventually evolved into a gallery format, with plans for events such as landscape shows that would benefit the Sierra Club.

Reverberations
Still, the arrangement was not working as she wanted it to. In 2006, Johnston’s business officially became a private operating foundation. She took on the role of president and also added a board of directors consisting of Amanda Fitzgerald, Emily Drummond, and Amy Gardner. “I figured as long as I’ve been nonprofit, we should make it official,” Johnston notes.

“We are looking for things that would engage people across social boundaries,” she explains, “the boundaries of economics, ethnicity, gender, age. The reason tai chi is my favorite thing we offer is it does that.

“My favorite model for social change is the single drop of water in the pond that causes vibrations and reverberations. Long after there’s anything visible going on, there’s change underwater going on; that’s how I feel about tai chi.”

During a regular Wednesday class, peaceful flute music mingles with calming guidance from the class instructor who asks participants to bow, stretch, flex, and move with focused concentration.

Shayne Nifong learned about the tai chi class at Blessings while she participated in another class at Forsyth Cancer Center. “You get to meet new people, and you get to experience how to relax,” says Nifong, a mother of three who underwent a mastectomy due to a family history of breast cancer. “You have a much better outlook for the day. It’s not just for people who’ve had sickness.”

In addition to the tai chi classes twice a week, Blessings provides a year-long series of workshops in conjunction with the Art of WellBeing, a holistic organization, and also holds brown bag lunches with speakers. The Foundation helped fund Earth Day at the Unitarian Church in 2007, partnered with the Sierra Club for its Earth Wave Eco Film Festival, and sponsors an alternative health fair twice a year.

Blessings also provided a grant to the Nyanya Project, which was started by visiting Wake Forest University professor Mary Martin Niepold to help African grandmothers, or nyanyas, care for AIDS orphans in Africa. Volunteers with Nyanya will be helping to build and repair shelters for the grandmothers in Dar Es Salaam and Tanzania, and Blessings is funding this mission. “Beverly has a heart bigger than the sky,” Niepold says.

823 Reynolda, which holds 125 people, is available for rent for weddings, lectures, and other occasions. Last year’s highlights included a luncheon with poet Mary Oliver, as well as an event with author Jill McCorkle.

Because Johnston owns the building and donates the space to the foundation, Blessings is able to support a broader variety of programs. In fact, in its first year, Blessings provided $30,000. Although it does not give grants to individuals, the foundation’s board of directors strives to evenly divide support among organizations that affect the environment, the arts, health, and spirituality.

One of Johnston’s goals is to connect groups with similar missions so they don’t have to “reinvent the wheel,” she says. She also would like to do more programming to join African-American and Hispanic communities.

“I’ll say it’s successful when it all has that tai chi feeling,” she adds, when we’re touching “people from every corner of life.”

For more information, go to blessingsproject.org.