BCD Special Report on
Historic Churches
17th annual edition
9
About Partners for
Sacred Places
Partners for Sacred Places is the only national,
non-sectarian, non-proft organisation
dedicated to the sound stewardship and active
community use of America’s older religious
properties. Partners provides assistance
to the people who care for sacred places
while promoting a new understanding of
how these places sustain communities.
Partners was founded in 1989 by a national
taskforce of religious, historic preservation
and philanthropic leaders. Since then, Partners
has served several thousand congregations
and other local organisations and represents
the needs and concerns of over 100,000 older,
community-serving sacred places in every
town and city across America. For more
information please visit www.sacredplaces.org.
Tuomi Joshua Forrest
BA MA has
worked at the Preservation Alliance for Greater
Philadelphia and as an architectural photographer.
He is currently the associate director of Partners
for Sacred Places and has ofered technical advice
and consultation to thousands of congregations
of all faiths on the care and active community
use of their historic religious buildings.
AcworthMeetinghouse: a true community restoration effort
Te Acworth Meetinghouse sits prominently
on a hill overlooking this small New Hampshire
village. Designed by Isaac Carter and built in
1821, the church is a fne example of Wren-
Gibbs architecture and has a magnifcent
three-part steeple, its most distinctive feature.
‘Tere wouldn’t be an Acworth without the
church sitting here,’ states Jon Putnam. ‘It’s
an architectural wonder, when you realise
what they [the original builders] did.’
It’s also a centre of community life,
hosting public events, meetings, and
visiting nurse programmes. It has the only
institutional kitchen in town. However,
recently the congregation, and the town,
nearly lost this symbol that had marked the
small New England village for generations.
Putnam, although not a member of the
congregation, joined the efort to restore the
steeple. ‘I just jumped in. Somebody had to
do it’. Putnam was not the only one to ‘jump
in’: in a village with only 880 residents it was
hard not to be concerned when in January,
2006 the steeple that defned the village was
taken down due to structural instability.
In 2008, the church, represented by the
Rev Peter Howe and three lay/community
leaders took part in Partners’ New Dollars/New
Partners training programme, along with 11
other congregations from across New England.
Te training supported the direction that the
church was taking, and helped give some new
ideas for formalising this church/community
partnership and raising additional funds. Howe
explains: ‘We formed a steering committee
that was half church members and half people
from the town. We have a lot of folks on the
committee who were dedicated to the building
as a historic structure’. Currently, the church
is planning to create a separate non-proft
charitable organisation to perpetuate this
informal collaboration, and to help ensure
continued funding and project management.
Te fundraising efort has been a joint
efort, with the biggest sources of funding
ultimately coming through a combination of
individual, corporate and philanthropic gifts,
just as the team learned in the New Dollars
training. ‘Tere are people who continually
give $100 dollars a month or have made
multiple $1,000 or $5,000 gifts. Te committee
also received funding from two local banks and
$2,000 from a local power company. Bascom
Maple Sugar, the largest employer in Acworth,
contributed $5,000. Te campaign received
two major boosts – through an anonymous gift
of $100,000 from a non-church member and
a grant of $130,000 from the New Hampshire
Land and Community Heritage Investment
Program (one of around 20 state preservation
funding programmes that allow active
religious congregations to apply for grants).
One of the most compelling aspects of
the project was the collaboration between
almost all of the town’s skilled carpenters
to ofer their services at reduced rates.
Aaron Sturgis was the lead contractor and
consultant. Ken Christie, a well-respected local
contractor became the in-town manager of
the project. He picked all the sub-contractors,
making the process open to everyone. On 20
June 2009, after three and a half years stationed
on the ground in front of the church, the steeple
was raised and put back into position on the
bell tower atop the Acworth Meetinghouse.
Attendees discuss their churches’ assets at
Module II of the Partners for Sacred Places New
Dollars/New Partners training programme.
A participant and his mentor at Neighborhood Bike Works, an innovative programme hosted by St Mary’s Episcopal
Church, Hamilton Village in West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Children aged 8-18 can join the Earn-a-Bike programme
to learn about bicycle safety and repair. Participants who complete the programme earn their own bike, helmet, and lock.