LAWRENCE — Early Wednesday night two young people 30 yards apart tossed a football on the hot asphalt in the big, mostly empty parking lot at 101 Amesbury St.
By 8:30 p.m. the far end had slowly filled with a food line and tables and chairs, canopy tents, a light stand, and music, craft and self-care stations along with an army of helping hands.
This was The Movement Family’s first Wednesday night dinner and gathering in their new home.
They were transplanted from the bordering Buckley parking garage after the city terminated their permit to use it on June 30.
The change of location will take the family, also known as TMF, some getting use to after eight years at Buckley, TMF founder Michael Gorman told the gathering.
Setting up at Buckley had been routine and the group automatically formed a pre-dinner circle of gratitude.
Here on Wednesday the shape was a half circle
“I know things are a little bit different,” Gorman told the group.
“It’s gonna take some time to adjust to.”
He said they would have to circulate word of the new location among the people they help, fellow TMFers, many of whom are struggling with addiction and homelessness.
The crowd of some 90 people on Wednesday included a majority of helpers, some of whom have known hard times including life on the streets.
While the new logistics were a work in progress, what remained the same was an overarching sense of gratitude.
Gorman thanked Rise Academy of Lawrence public schools and scores of other home chefs as well as businesses that prepared and donated barbecue chicken, lasagna, pizza, salads, bread, desserts and drinks.
“We’ve got to be super grateful that we’ve got a home right now,” he said.
“That’s a big thank you to Dr. Gorn, who owns that building in this parking lot for giving us a chance.”
TMFers held a small handmade ribbon of paper that read: “The Movement Family, July 1, 2026.”
The crowd counted down from 10 and longtime TMFer Brian Cervera and a young child cut the ribbon with oversized scissors as the crowd cheered.
“New beginnings, guys, new beginnings,” Gorman said.
Change is constant, it never stops, he said in an interview, but TMF’s dedication to help and appreciation continues, too.
Among the people here were longtime helpers and newcomers.
Annexy Arias and her three children, two girls, 6 and 9, and a boy, 12, have been coming to TMF since the holidays.
She and the children, who live in Lawrence, help set up and serve and the kids sing and dance at the live music station.
Her youngest daughter helped cut the ribbon this night.
Arias said she wants her children to know that life has ups and downs, but we have to keep hope alive by staying strong.
“And although the way society is right now, it can make it hard for us to believe that there are good people out there, but obviously this shows that there definitely still is,” she said, looking around.
A TMF member, Amy Raymond, of Methuen, with connections to a business in Salem was handing out cards for free trampoline time.
Raymond has been volunteering with TMF for six years, helping set up and making hot chocolate in the winter and Kool-Ade in the summer.
She also volunteers on the TMF homeless encampment team that visits the sites during extreme cold weather.
Raymond loves being a part of Gorman’s organization.
“I’ll continue doing it as long as he runs it,” she said.
Wilfredo Valdero, a young man from Lawrence, a New Balance employee, started his TMF involvement by donating clothes and helping with coffee/donuts on Saturdays.
The first Wednesday TMF at Amesbury Street was his first Wednesday volunteering on Wednesdays.
Shanika Joseph, a UMass Lowell bio-medical engineering student who graduated from high school in 2021, was to encourage people and connect them with education and other resources.
She is originally from Haiti, living there until age 8, surviving an earthquake and cholera. Later, beginning at age 19 in Lawrence, she was homeless for several years.
Joseph has a fellow feeling for homeless people.
As a student at Notre Dame Academy in Lawrence the school served free lunches.
“I would take extra, and I would pass it out to the people on the street,” she said.
The Wednesday nights dinners at the new site are going to take time to reestablish a sense of familiarity.
The gathering needs time to re-root nourished by helping hands and sustained by gratitude.