Oak Park’s Grace Episcopal Church is one of 10 church’s in the Chicago area taking part in a Illinois Landmark Preservation Council joint program to help congregations upgrade their historic buildings.
The Preservation Council is a sponsor of the New Dollar/New Partners for Your Sacred Places program. The program offers congregations training in assessing their buildings’ needs and how to make improvements. The program is run by Philadelphia-based Partners for Sacred Places, a non-profit, national organization that helps churches maintain their older buildings and properties.
The more-than-100-year-old Grace Episcopal Church, 924 Lake St., is the only Church in Oak Park taking part in the program, which is why it hosted the first in a series of two-day workshops last week. Future workshops will take place later in the year at other locations. Participating congregations will receive a $6,000 grant toward projects involved with their buildings’ renovation.
This is the first time the New Dollars/New Partners program has been offered to the Chicago area. Of the many churches to apply, said Suzanne Germann, Preservation Fund and Assessment coordinator for the council, the 10 who were able to send at least four representatives to the four scheduled workshops were chosen.
“We really focused on the congregations who were enthusiastic about the program,” said Germann.
Eight of the 10 participating churches are in Chicago. Riverside Presbyterian Church is also participating. Each church has four representatives attending the workshops.
Rev. Shawn Schreiner of Grace Episcopal said her church is currently involved in a capital campaign. The church, she said, is in need of repairs totaling $1.2 million, but settled on a $550,000 targeted amount for the most pressing projects. The congregation has thus far raised $600,000, said Schreiner.
She said renovations to the bathrooms and electrical work in the sanctuary are needed, along with repairs to the roof caused by damage from snow and ice.
The first workshop, though, had church representatives and their instructors talking more about each church’s community, which Schreiner said emphasizes an “asset-based” development approach.
“It was good to do that,” she said. “We tend to think about this thing needing to be fixed and that thing needing to be worked on, and we forget to give thanks for what we have and how that impacts the community. I’m glad they got us to focus on that. It’s hard to do that when there’s so much that needs to be done.”
Churches began applying last fall. An introductory workshop for applicants took place in September 2005.
“Many of the churches who participated in the introduction applied for the program,” said Germann. “We were looking for a program like this. Congregations with historic buildings needed that support, so this program will sort of fulfill that need.”
Grace Episcopal was built in 1895. The congregation began in 1879 at another location. Schreiner said listening to the other participants share stories about their buildings was helpful.
“To hear from an architect and others asking about your space gets you thinking about what you need done,” said Schreiner, the church’s leader since 2004. “Part of [our mission] is to seriously take care of this space that we inherited and that has served this congregation for over 100 years.”
Three remaining workshops are scheduled for June, August and September, to take place at different locations.
For more information about the program New Dollar/New Partners for Your Sacred Place, contact Sarah Peveler, director of training for Sacred Places at 215/567-3234 ext. 14 or spevler@sacredplaces.org.
CONTACT: tdean@wjinc.com