TABLE OF CONTENTS
3 Update on Partners: Annual Report; New
Dollars/New Partners Success Story
15
20
22
FEATURE STORY:
More Than Just Soup Kitchens:
Rethinking Food and Sacred Places
Professional Alliance Spotlight:
Glass Heritage, LLC
Professional Alliance Directory
ABOUT PARTNERS
Partners for Sacred Places is the only national,
nonsectarian, nonprofit organization dedicated to
the sound stewardship and active community use
of America’s older religious properties.
Partners’ Programs and
Services Include:
•
Training. New Dollars/New Partners for Your
Sacred Place is an intensive program that gives
congregations with older buildings the skills and
resources to broaden their base of support.
•
Regional Offices. Partners offers training,
workshops, and technical assistance through its
Pennsylvania, Texas, and Chicago Offices.
•
Workshops and Conferences. Partners’ staff
speaks at national and regional conferences on
a variety of topics. Additionally, Partners offers
consulting services on fundraising and adaptive
re-use options for congregations and community
organizations.
•
Publications. Partners carries a variety of books
and pamphlets on a range of topics relevant to
historic sacred places.
•
Information Clearinghouse. This web-based
resource provides information related to the care
and use of older sacred places.
(www. sacredplaces.org/information_center.htm)
•
Advocacy Initiatives. Partners works with civic
leaders, funders, and policymakers, urging them
to adopt policies and practices that provide new
resources to older religious properties.
•
The Halo Effect. Partners documents and
articulates how congregations positively
contribute to the economic health and vitality of
their communities.
•
Making Homes for the Arts in Sacred Places.
Partners pairs historic sacred places and arts
organizations in ways that benefit both groups.
COVER PHOTO: Members of the Three
Brothers Garden in the West Walker
neighborhood of Chicago, IL, display freshpicked produce bound for a local food pantry.
Photo courtesy of Three Brothers Garden.
THUMBNAIL PHOTO: Detail of a fully
restored painted window at First Baptist
Church in Davenport, IA. Photo courtesy of
Glass Heritage, LLC.
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Over the last two years, Partners has learned
that there are enormous opportunities for
us to match – and support – congregations
that have unused or underused space in their
buildings with arts groups looking for a home to
house their rehearsals, performances, offices,
and other functions. And to do this matching
effectively, our Making Homes for the Arts in
Sacred Places program is beginning to create
– starting with Philadelphia and Chicago – a
comprehensive inventory of all open and
available spaces in religious properties. I’m
talking about parish halls, former Sunday
School spaces, auditoriums, fellowship halls,
classrooms, unused chapels, schools, convents,
and so on. Partners is the first nonprofit in
America to track all those spaces that could be better used in ways that are
mutually beneficial to the congregation and the theatre, dance, or music
organization it hosts.
This work is very important, but we are beginning to realize that our role
can be even larger. Since there is an abundance of empty space in churches,
synagogues, and other sacred places, and since there are countless nonprofit
organizations – in social services, education, and community development,
as well as the arts – that need an affordable, welcoming home, our growing
inventory and support services could have a much larger purpose.
This truth was pointed out to us when we presented our Arts in Sacred Places
project to the trustees of a foundation in Philadelphia, one of our most
important program funders. Like so many other donors, the foundation is
very interested in how churches can serve people in need, and so the trustees
pointed out that Partners could play a role in matching church space with a
wider range of nonprofit service organizations. How true!
An excellent example of this larger role for Partners is illustrated in our cover
story: “More than Just Soup Kitchens.” We are seeing that many sacred places
have magnificent, commercial-grade kitchens that are not used as often or as
intensively as they used to be. At the same time, Partners is aware of a whole
host of food programs that need a place to prepare or present food, especially
in neighborhoods where good, nutritious, affordable food is scarce. Funders
are using the term “food equity” for those programs that make good food –
fresh food from local farmers, prepared foods, and food prepared by local
entrepreneurs – available to everyone in low-income communities.
And Partners, once again, may be positioned to play the role of bringing
congregations and community programs together. One of our first efforts is
at Tindley Temple United Methodist Church in Philadelphia, named after
the renowned Dr. Charles