Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia
Preservation Matters March-April 1998

The Historic Religious Properties Program is excited to be working with Partners for Sacred Places on a national initiative to highlight the central role older and historic places of worship play in communities throughout the country and their vulnerability due to physical deterioration and scarce resources. Beginning in March, Partners will be inaugurating a series of projects under the umbrella of "Open Arms/Open Doors." The first event will be a covered dish supper, held on Sunday, March 22nd as part of the renowned "The Book and the Cook" annual event and designed to provide funds for later Open Arms/Open Doors programs. The covered dish supper will draw upon recipes from local church and synagogue cookbooks and will feature entertainment and the premiere of "After Sunday," a new video depicting the roles that three Philadelphia-area congregations play in anchoring their neighborhoods and the challenges they face in maintaining their historic buildings.

Partners for Sacred Places is the nation's only non-sectarian, non-profit organization devoted to helping Americans care for and make good use of older and historic religious properties. Based in Philadelphia - and sharing offices with the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia - Partners brings a national perspective to the work the Historic Religious Properties Program does to assist owners of historic places of worship in the Philadelphia area.

Partners has undertaken an initiative to document and quantify all that congregations bring to their communities. While many of us know anecdotally that older religious properties function as a new generation of community centers, meeting the needs of non-congregation members, Partners' study has documented the extent of this service in cities throughout the country. The economic value of building space, utilities, staff and volunteer time, and donated funds and supplies provided to the community amounts to an astounding $100,000 per congregation each year. In the city of Philadelphia, with more than 700 older or historic religious properties, the value of congregation support to the human service and culture infrastructure is in excess of $70 million per year.

This information is being used to help congregations receive the attention they deserve - and to help open up new sources of funding to help them maintain and restore their historic properties. The Historic Religious Properties Program has helped Partners put a human face on the statistics, connecting them with local congregations that can help tell the story described by the numbers. The video produced for this event profiles three Philadelphia area congregations that provide extensive service to their communities and have had a long relationship with the Historic Religious Properties Program. First African Presbyterian Church, featured in the Summer 1996 issue of INSPIRED, has extensive arts and community outreach programs, despite the many repair needs of its building. Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Roman Catholic Church in Camden, featured in the Winter 1995 INSPIRED, is an anchor in its community, providing space for a new school and linking the current Latino community with former Italian American parishioners. St. Luke and the Epiphany in Center City Philadelphia provides a broad variety of social services and hosts a huge number of neighborhood organizations including a health clinic.

The covered dish supper will be held at Trinity Memorial Episcopal Church at 22nd and Spruce Streets in Center City. Struck by lightning three years ago (see the Summer 1995 INSPIRED), the church has just completed a major restoration and rebuilding campaign. This gave the congregation the opportunity to modify the building to better serve the surrounding community. The sanctuary functions both as worship space, while serving an ever-increasing set of community events, including meetings, concerts, and theatrical performances. Trinity Memorial is a fitting setting for the opening event of Open Arms/Open Doors, since it embodies the new dual roles of many historic religious properties as both community centers and places of worship.

Partners will also kick off an initiative in mid-March that will make the message of Open Arms/Open Doors real and useful to individual congregations. A specially-designed guide helps congregations to gather and articulate information about themselves in a way that appeals to potential new partners and funders. This segment of Open Arms/Open Doors will equip faith-group training teams to conduct workshops for their own members.

As March 22nd approaches, you will be hearing more about Partners' initiatives. Partners has been working with local and national media to get out the story about the enormous contributions of historic places of worship to our communities as well as the physical challenges of maintaining these older buildings. They have published a report, Sacred Places at Risk in which Philadelphia was one of six cities surveyed, that will be followed this spring by a book, and held a series of press conferences and symposia.

For further information about Open Arms/Open Doors, check Partners' website at www.sacredplaces.com or contact Sarah Peveler at Partners for Sacred Places at 215-546-1288.