Christopher Wigren, Stacy and Frankie Vairo, Jane Montanaro, Lady Shalene McClam, Pastor Darrell McClam, and Mother Helen Jean Carr on Sunday.
The congregants of Pitts Chapel United Free Will Baptist Church are not only raising their historic sanctuary’s roof in dancing, singing, and exuberant prayer as they do every Sunday — now they are also able to fix it.
The badly leaking roof in question belongs to century-old Pitts Chapel at 64 Brewster St. in Newhallville.
On Sunday morning the church members, led by Pastor Darrell McClam, sent hallelujahs of gratitude aloft not only for the glory of being alive, but also to celebrate a vital $8,500 grant from Preservation Connecticut, which is enabling a roof replacement to commence in the coming weeks.
Preservation Connecticut, headquartered on Whitney Avenue, also provided, a similar grant to Pitts Chapel for furnace replacement in 2022, when the historic church’s furnace was leaking gas and had to be replaced on an emergency basis.
“The grants stepped in at just the right time,” said McClam, in his second year leading a church community that has about a hundred members, many of modest means and some poor, and simply does not have the resources to come up with those significant financial outlays on the spur of the moment.
In stepped Preservation Connecticut, a private state-oriented nonprofit, that has a special fund dedicated specifically to support historic buildings of religious organizations.
“Being a nonprofit,” said Preservation Connecticut’s Executive Director Jane Montanaro, “we’re able to process more quickly.”
The group also deals in awarding the type of grant — the historic religious building maintenance and upgrade grants are capped at $15,000 each — “in smaller chunks that congregations can handle,” she added.
The grants are a one-to-one match, and the church, having raised its portion, is poised to hire a roofing company in the coming days, said Jacqueline Lewis, the church’s financial secretary.
While the money itself is state funding from the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), flowing it through Preservation Connecticut enables time-sensitive projects — like broken boilers and leaking roofs — to be addressed more nimbly, and, occasionally on an emergency basis, as was the case with the church’s heating unit in 2022.
Still it takes a mover-and-shaker within the church to make the grant happen and that mission was undertaken by Mother Helen Jean Carr, president of the church’s Home Mission. She was in touch with Preservation Connecticut’s circuit rider, or field service staffer for the area, Stacy Vairo, and together they fashioned what turned out to be a successful application.
Vairo’s 11-year-old son Frankie was on hand, along with Montanaro and other Preservation Connecticut staffers, with a blow-up of the check that was presented at the Sunday morning service.
“Not only do these buildings house worship services,” reads the press release announcing 12 similar grants statewide, “they also provide important space for other groups to perform their work, including hosting soup kitchens, childcare, Boy/Girl Scouts activities, food or clothing banks, and recovery programs.”
In the case of Pitts Chapel, there is something more.
Church "Mothers" Danise McNeill and Helen Jean Carr.
Not only is the church, by virtue of its being in the Winchester Repeating Arms Historic District, on the National Historic Register, it also houses three original 1890s-1910 Tiffany stained glass windows, which line the back of the pulpit platform on the church’s south side.
The late Victorian-style windows, explained Preservation Deputy Director Christopher Wigren, were originally part of Center Church, on the Green, but were given as gifts to Pitts Chapel (and other area beneficiary organizations) when Center Church re-designed its interior in the 1960s.
“The roof is one of the key things that make for a stable environment for the windows,” Wigren added. He also said that the older portion of the Pitts Chapel church building dates back to 1914.
Alas, God’s house, like yours or mine, is always in need of ongoing repair, and next on the list for Pitts Chapel, are other big-ticket items like an elevator, a repaving of the areas outside, and a re-painting.
But at least the congregation, which for six months could not hold services in the main sanctuary, are now back there, a “loving and praying church,” as McClam described it, in a more physically secure setting.
Of the 12 statewide projects to receive these grants this year, only one other is in New Haven: a $15,000 grant for roof repairs at St. Paul’s Union American Methodist Episcopal Church on Chapel Street at Dwight.