Institutional anniversaries provide the occasion to reflect back on our roots in order to, ideally, provide inspiration to both persevere and innovate as we navigate the challenges and opportunities of our present context. As Grebel’s 60th anniversary celebrations come to an end, the College is marking the 10th anniversary of the launch of the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement. This brief article draws attention to the ways that both Grebel and the Centre for Peace Advancement have welcomed affiliate organizations, providing a home for mission-aligned professionals in addition to students, staff, and faculty. This is a unique and understated facet of the tradition of community-building that Grebel is renowned for.
The aspiration of the Centre for Peace Advancement from the outset was to create a collaborative hub for advancing peace, and thus offices for affiliate organizations were built into the design of the space. Some of the very first occupants of the fourth floor of Grebel’s new academic wing in 2014 were staff with Project Ploughshares.
Project Ploughshares was making a return to Grebel, where it was started by Ernie Regehr and Murray Thompson in 1976. Regehr was invited by Grebel’s second president, Frank Epp, to develop a peace research institute alongside the academic program in Peace and Conflict Studies that new 
faculty member Conrad Brunk was launching. Regehr and Thompson developed Ploughshares into a leading Canadian peace and disarmament organization supported by a broad network of individuals and sponsoring churches under the umbrella of the Canadian Council of Churches. In 2002, Ploughshares moved to the Centre for International Governance Innovation in uptown Waterloo due to space constraints resulting from growing academic programs at Grebel. But the sense that something important at Grebel was lost with that move was one of the impulses that led to the creation of the Centre for Peace Advancement.
Ernie Regehr, co-founder of Project Ploughshares, in an office at Grebel.
In addition to Ploughshares, the Centre has provided a home for five other long-established organizations:
- Tamarack Institute, a national organization focused on building community and enabling social change that was co-founded in 2001 by Grebel alum Paul Born, has also affiliated with the Centre since 2014.
- Community Peacemaker Teams (formerly Christian Peacemaker Teams), an organization that supports and amplifies the voices of local peacemakers and traces its roots back to the 1980s, was part of the Centre from 2016-2017.
- Centre for Community Based Research, an organization that has conducted and promoted research that is participatory and action-oriented since 1982, joined the Centre in 2023.
- Waterloo Public Interest Research Group (WPIRG), a student-run organization focused on social and environmental justice that started in 1973, was part of the Centre from 2014 until they closed in 2017.
- Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), which marked its centenary in 2020, has been formally affiliated with the Centre since 2018
Two additional affiliate organizations currently in the fold are among the more than thirty peace-startups that have been supported by one of the Centre’s key programs, the Grebel Peace Incubator.
- Intercultural Dialogue Institute (IDI) of Kitchener-Waterloo has advanced social cohesion across cultures, faiths, and ethnicities through dialogue since 2014.
- The Ripple Effect Education (TREE) has equipped children, youth, and adults with tools to transform conflict, seek justice, and uphold positive peace since 2015.
Several decades before the founding of the Centre for Peace Advancement, Grebel played a role in starting other organizations and initiatives in addition to Project Ploughshares; established organizations were also welcomed into the College at various points in time. Indeed, the Centre’s hospitable and innovative spirit has deep roots—physical space has been generously shared and administrative support extended for many decades now, and meaningful connections with Grebel’s academic programs have been plentiful.
For example, Grebel’s first president, J. Winfield Fretz, also served as the inaugural president of the Mennonite Historical Society of Ontario when it was formed in 1965. The Society was incorporated as an independent charity in 1968, but it has continued to affiliate with Grebel. Beyond making use of the College’s mailing address and relying on Grebel faculty and staff for leadership roles, it has supported programs such as the Mennonite Archives of Ontario and Brubacher House Museum. Indeed, the Society helped to furnish and develop educational programming for this historic Mennonite farmhouse on the north campus of the University of Waterloo when restorations were completed in 1977.
An example of an independent organization that later found a home at Grebel is The Network: Interaction for Conflict Resolution. Growing out of workshops and resources offered in the early 1980s by MCC and Community Justice Initiatives (itself an offshoot of MCC Ontario), the emergence of this network was also influenced by the involvement and interests of Conrad Brunk, the inaugural director of Grebel’s PACS program. Originally called The Network for Community Justice and Conflict Resolution when it was established in 1984, it was registered as a charity in 1988, and organized regular consultations and a national conference for conflict resolution practitioners. In 1992, they moved their offices to Grebel from their original home at the Quaker Meeting House in Kitchener. Like Ploughshares, the Network moved on from Grebel in 2002, although it folded in 2005. Dean Peachey, who first began teaching PACS courses at Grebel in 1980, played a leadership role in the Network throughout much of its history.
Mennonite Historical Society of Ontario Board of Directors in 1966. l-r: Dorothy Swartzentruber,Barbra Coffman, Herbert Enns, Elven Shantz, J.w. Fretz, Wilson Hunsberger, Lorna Bergy, Harld Nigh, Orland Gingerich
In addition to co-founding Project Ploughshares, Ernie Regehr played a key role in the development of the Horn of Africa Project (HAP), a collaboration between MCC and Grebel. This project operated from 1984 to 1991, and, like Ploughshares and the Network, was formally connected to Grebel through its membership in the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. HAP aimed to address conflict as a root cause of hunger in East Africa at a time when international attention was focused primarily on famine relief. Facing ongoing challenges in securing funding as a hybrid academic/non-governmental organization, HAP eventually morphed into the World Order and Regional Conflict project within Project Ploughshares. Despite its relatively brief history, HAP organized several significant consultations and had an outsized impact on both the peacebuilding and humanitarian sectors.
A final example to mention from Grebel’s family of affiliated organizations is the Centre for Family Business, led initially by former Grebel Chaplain John Fast. Started in 1997 as a result of conversations between Fast and a few local business leaders (including Milo Shantz, the father of Grebel’s current president), this Centre continues to support families who run businesses through regular breakfast meetings, workshops, and educational resources.
There have also been many other expressions of the outward-facing orientation of the Grebel community. In fact, the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia entry for Grebel highlights twelve “Community/Affiliated Programs,” including community music programs such as the Inter-Mennonite Children’s Choir (1968-1981) and Menno Singers (formally affiliated for just one year on 1974-75), and a Music-Lecture Series that began 1967 and became the Noon Hour Concerts in 1977. This entry also lists educational outreach programs of the college such as the School of Adult Studies (1965-1983), the Conflict Management Certificate Program (1999-), and the Anabaptist Learning Workshop (2015-2020). Other educational programs hosted or initiated by Grebel not on this list include the Ontario Mennonite Music Camp (1984-), Peace Camp (2011-2018), and the Toronto Mennonite Theological Centre (1990-2023).
The Grebel community has always included communities beyond our students, staff, and faculty. When we consider the organizations and initiatives that have affiliated with the College throughout its history, we can layer on a remarkable collection of leaders and entrepreneurs, facilitators and organizers, teachers and trainers, activists and artists, not to mention administrators and communications specialists. Enriching our community with practitioners has added additional layers of meaning and connection to conversations in hallways and around dining room tables, and provided unique learning opportunities for students in our classrooms and through internship and co-op placements.
