Preserving Black Churches in Philadelphia
By the Rev. Betsy Ivey,
Director of the Philadelphia Fund for Black Sacred Places
P
artners for Sacred Places and the Preservation Alliance for Greater
Philadelphia broke new ground when they created the Philadelphia Fund for Black Sacred Places( PFBSP). Funded by the William Penn Foundation as part of its Creative Communities program in 2023, the threeyear grant provides support for the preservation and community use of eight historic, Black-led churches. These churches, in turn, committed to providing more public use of their buildings. The innovative relationship between the sacred spaces and their neighborhoods will expand the public’ s appreciation for the importance of Black cultural and historic sites to the past and future development of Philadelphia neighborhoods.
To support their application to the grant program, congregations presented a preservation project proposal that would extend the life of their building and expand their community-oriented programming, ranging from New River Presbyterian Church’ s wellness program in collaboration with Penn Medicine, to a construction trades employment center at Abiding Truth Ministries, to a new space for archival display at Tindley Temple United Methodist.
Tindley Temple United Methodist Church hosted an organ concert in its sanctuary, and created a public exhibition space on famed opera singer and former member Marian Anderson. Daniel Kontz
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