Over the years, the First Presbyterian Church in Davenport, on the corner of Iowa St. and Kirkwood Blvd, bought homes surrounding the church to offer housing to middle-income families. In July 2023, one of the houses suffered fire damage and the adjacent property sat vacant needing extensive repairs. The church had just scheduled the demolition. But then, four days later, church-member Nancy Chapman said, "everything changed."
In March 2025 the church was hosting a benefit concert for Tapestry Farms, an nonprofit urban farm. Chapman said she overheard Tapestry Farms founder and executive director, Ann McGlynn, talking about the need for housing for area refugees.
“It was clear there might be a need for two large houses that we had just slated for demolition. We needed to know more and reached out to Tapestry Farms after the concert,” Chapman said in a phone interview with WVIK. “[The] demolition contract was canceled, and a new process began.”
The two groups found outside assistance with Falcon Home Improvements LLC as the lead contractor.
Within 18 months, Tapestry Farms and First Presbyterian renovated both structures for $180,000. The funding came from the church’s foundation group, QC Housing Council, Community Resources Corporation, and anonymous individual donors.
“[I]t's important that two families will be able to live in what have become beautiful homes. But also to be a part of a solution, a model for our community to look at, to see that it is possible for our greater Quad City community to look at homes and say, ‘Okay, it's vacant, it's boarded up, but it can come back to life and it can really serve the purpose of ensuring that everybody in our community has access to affordable housing,’” McGlynn said in a phone interview with WVIK.
One of the homes has four-bedrooms and two-bathrooms, the other has five bedrooms, two baths.
McGlynn and her organization identified two families. One family with six members and the other with seven from Afghanistan and Sudan.
“Both of these families have people with consistent employment. They work in our community. They're going to school. They're working hard on achieving goals as they work to rebuild their lives,” McGlynn said. “Both of them wish to have gardens in the backyard. They're both skilled at growing food, and these houses have big backyards. So, as we sought to find a good fit for each of the homes, two families emerged as good candidates.”
McGlynn reached out to United Way Quad Cities to participate in the United Way Day of Caring to assist with rejuvenating the yards.
“[A] group of about 15 staff members from the American Rental Association came, there was quite a bit of yard work to get done, and so they did amazing work,” McGlynn said. “We got so much done that day, and the yards look absolutely gorgeous now. So again, just going back to how different people brought what they had to the table in order to make this project happen.”
Volunteers from the First Presbyterian Church also contributed to the renovations of the two homes. The church and Tapestry Farms held an open house on Monday, Sept. 21.
Chapman said the houses’ transformations are overwhelming.
“To be honest, if it hadn't been for that concert, we'd be looking at two vacant lots, which is to me incredible that one experience would cause, motivate, spark a great change,” Chapman said. “I'm appreciative of that, quite frankly, of that concert and of the partnership, the tremendous partnership that we have now with Tapestry Farms, both my church, the First Presbyterian Church, and the foundation of the church, which actually owns the houses. So it's been an amazing transformation.”
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