Nonprofit Builds Hope for Historic Religious Buildings

By: Betty Dillard, Fort Worth Business Press - Aug 31, 2009

Residents and business owners in Galveston are continuing to rebuild after Hurricane Ike’s destruction almost one year ago. Progress is slow and tedious but there are beginning to be signs of hope among the devastation, particularly with several struggling congregations receiving help from the Fort Worth office of a national nonprofit organization.

Two months after the September storm swept across Galveston Island, staff from Partners for Sacred Places and its Texas regional office located in Fort Worth met with 65 representatives from 27 congregations in Galveston to hear their stories and assess their needs.

As a result, the Texas office pledged its 2009 funding and resources to assist 10 hurricane-affected congregations in Galveston rebuild their religious places as well as their community outreach.

Partners is being assisted in the Galveston project by the Texas Historical Commission, Preservation Texas Inc., the Galveston Historical Foundation, the Church Restoration Group and a multitude of volunteers, both professionals and laypeople. The group’s work is ongoing and is expected to continue until the end of 2010.

“We understand the need for the here-and-now, but our focus is on long-term sustainability and visioning for these congregations,” said Froswa Booker-Drew, director of the Texas office, who is overseeing the project. “The comments we’re hearing are, ‘Now I have hope. Now I can see the future and what the possibilities are.’”

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, Partners for Sacred Places is the only national, nonsectarian nonprofit dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of America’s historic houses of worship. The group was co-founded in Philadelphia, Pa., by Executive Director A. Robert Jaeger and Diane Cohen. The organization provides financial and technical assistance, resources and training to those who care for sacred places and promotes a greater understanding to the public of how these places build and sustain communities.

Four years ago, when Fort Worth architect James Nader, president of Nader Design Group and formerly president of the Texas Society of Architects, saw the continuing deterioration of many local church buildings, he decided it was time to act. That’s when he discovered Partners for Sacred Places.

“I realized they were already doing what I wanted to accomplish here,” Nader said.

Nader gathered fellow architects, historic preservationists, real estate developers, city officials and religious leaders for an all-day conference in June 2005 and introduced them to Partners. In October 2006, with funding from a charity Nader and his wife established and a $1 million grant from the Robert and Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust, the Texas regional office opened as Partners’ first branch office.

“One of our immediate goals is to obtain sustainable funding to continue this beyond the initial five years of the grant,” Nader said.

The regional office covers the entire state although past efforts have concentrated on congregations in Fort Worth-Dallas and North Texas. The high-profile work in Galveston is helping raise more awareness for the Texas office and its services are expanding but, said Booker-Drew, “a lot of people still don’t know who we are and I want people to know the services we provide.”

Booker-Drew said that to date, 35 congregations in Texas have gone through Partners’ signature program, a 16-month, hands-on training program called New Dollars/New Partners. Under the program, congregants learn how to build relationships with new community members and prospective donors to create sustainable partnerships. Participating congregations also may receive $3,000 planning grants to assess necessary repairs to a property and prepare reports for fund raising.

The regional office recently started the Texas Sacred Places Project, a comprehensive online database that will ultimately list all of the historical sacred places in the state of Texas. Partners is working with architectural schools statewide – including those at Texas Tech University, Prairie View A&M, the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University – to lay the foundation for data collection statewide.

Funding for all its programs and projects, as well as building a greater network of volunteers, is urgent, said Booker-Drew. Although Partners is making progress in Galveston, more money needs to be raised for the project, which she hopes can continue beyond next year.

“Initially, I was so depressed when I went down there [to Galveston]. But now I am hopeful,” said Booker-Drew. “To see the community come together, to see these different faiths now working together and relying on each other gives me hope.”
 

Additional Information:
http://www.fwbusinesspress.com/display.php?id=10911