San Antonio Mennonite ’ s well-maintained Missionstyle entrance welcomes visitors . Angela Bartels
TRANSFORMATIVE STORYTELLING at San Antonio Mennonite Church
By Emilie Haertsch Communications Manager , Partners for Sacred Places
In December 2022 , Mitzi Moore of San Antonio Mennonite Church spoke with Partners for Sacred Places about the congregation ’ s participation in the New Dollars / New Partners for Your Historic Sacred Place program and how their fundraising , building maintenance , and mission have changed as a result in the subsequent near decade .
1 . Tell us about your church building . San Antonio Mennonite is a beautiful , historic church — the sanctuary dates to 1949 and the rest of the building 11 years earlier . It ’ s located in a historic district . The church was formerly Presbyterian , and that congregation gave us a good deal when we bought it from them . They were very generous . But then we owned the building and did not have the money for maintenance . We found out that with all the things wrong with the building it needed over one million dollars ’ worth of work , which was well over our annual budget .
2 . How did your initial attempts at fundraising go ? We had an aging building that needed massive work , but we didn ’ t know where to start . And we used our building for activities beyond worship . We had a domestic violence group using the space , and several other community groups . We had a Narcotics Anonymous group that met weekly in our hall , but we had no working air conditioning , which is a big deal in Texas . The maintenance problems were affecting our ability to use the church buildings and others ’, too . I was the congregational chair , and I stepped down to become the fundraising chair . Our first attempts at raising money for the repairs were not very fruitful . We tried shopping hours at a local retail establishment and made only $ 200 . Then we did a Christmas card appeal and again made only a few hundred dollars .
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