Community unites after fire damages historic church building

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) – Parishioners from the St. John the Baptist Church in Maria Stein went to mass this Sunday at the Precious Blood Church over in Chickasaw.
The church community was invited to the nearby church because of a massive fire that heavily damaged the 135-year-old building on Thursday evening.
'A big loss': Church steeple, roof collapse in massive Maria Stein fire
2 NEWS spoke with two community members about the drastic change in their lives, Ted and Sarah Burgmen, who live close to St. John's.
'It's like our world changed,' said Sarah, 'we thought of all the baptisms, first communions, weddings and funerals which happened there. Over 135 years is quite a history of things that can't be replaced.'
The pair spoke on how the community is looking forward.
'People will rebuild that church,' said Ted. 'The building's gone, but the people aren't.'
'The building is a building, but the church is our community,' said Sarah.
The two churches have been closed before. When St. John's was being repainted, Precious Blood invited over their parish for four months.
'Everybody works with each other,' shared Ted. 'This is one great big community here.'
Maria Stein community assesses damage after devastating church fire
Dr. James 'Jim' Schwieterman spoke with 2 NEWS as he visited the fence outside of St. John.
'This is my community,' said Schwieterman. 'All the sacraments for me, my mother, my grandparents and my great grandparents, all started here at St. John's church. They say 'you try to make the unreal real' and so you come out here to process the loss.'
He continued, speaking on rebuilding.
'I was asked, 'do you think they'll rebuild?' and I said I know they will. It's not an if, it's a when. The local community, Catholic and not alike, we band together. It's who we are, it's what we're about.'
2 NEWS will follow the St. John's community through these next steps.
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PACIFIC PALISADES, CALIF. — The Rev. Matthew Hardin had been to the site of his burned-down Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles at least a dozen times before, but in late May, he had the chance to step into what was previously his office. This time, Hardin walked a familiar path, no longer needing to sift through the debris or potentially toxic substances. The reverend knew the layout of his office like the back of his hand and 'could diagram everything exactly where it was' — but in front of him, 'it was all ash.' 'It was heartbreaking,' Hardin told the Deseret News about his visit to the site where his church once stood. He found the remains of what looked like a stapler and his rolling chair. At the time of the evacuations, the pastor didn't think to take with him all the things he'd accumulated as a faith leader for more than two decades, 'gifts and cards and books, my preaching robe and my stoles — I didn't grab any of it,' Hardin said. 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After the fires, many longtime residents were forced to leave their homes behind and find a new place to live. 'For many of our older members, this was their opportunity to move back closer to their children and grandchildren,' and avoid Los Angeles' tough housing market. 'So, we're really all over the place geographically,' Hardin said. Their sister church in Brentwood, a nearby neighborhood, opened its doors to the Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church's congregation. Jan Gong is one such displaced congregant after losing her home of nearly 47 years. She moved to the other side of town and it's nearly a 50-minute commute to see her 'second family' at the church. 'It's almost like a reunion sometimes when you see everyone,' she said. But conversations during coffee hour after the service are far from light-hearted. They are more so about pain, loss and grief. 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Sitting on the edge of her seat during her drive, she listened in as Cantor Ruth Berman Harris and other Synagogue leaders attempted to formulate a rescue mission. Little did they know, Robert Brown III, already had a plan set in motion. 'He's not Jewish but he knew he had to save the Torahs,' Levy said during a video call in mid-May. Brown, the Synagogue's facilities manager, wasn't scheduled to go to work the day the fires started, but he decided to anyway to feel better prepared for the next day. He reached the temple around 6:15 p.m. and saw the blaze in the mountains. Brown couldn't help but think of a strange coincidence as he set out to save the Torahs. His mind instantly went to his late father, also named Robert Brown. The younger Brown took over the managerial job from his father. Like a historic echo, the senior Brown rescued the very same Torahs during the Foothill fires back in 1993. 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The Jewish community in this part of Los Angeles dates back to the early 1900s. This budding congregation purchased a mission revival-style building on North Altadena Drive that had come to be known as the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center. This Synagogue is the reason why Levy uprooted her life in upstate New York and moved to Pasadena with her husband 14 years ago. Now, she and other leaders were tasked with publishing the news that this historic house of worship went up in flames. Once the tragic announcement went public, the phone calls and emails and donations of support began rolling in from across the world, Levy said. 'One of the first donations was from a congregant from the Tree of Life Synagogue,' she noted. The Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg faced a devastating attack in 2018, when a gunman killed 11 people and injured six more. As per The Washington Post, it was 'the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.' The message attached to the donation said, 'We know what it's like to be homeless,' Levy recalled. These moments serve as reminders that religion holds communities together even in the absence of a place to worship, she said. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services conducted a study on faith-based relief and recovery efforts after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which caused widespread damage in Louisiana and Mississippi. It found that faith organizations faced challenges in the aftermath of the storms, but 70% of them managed to offer rapid relief services on scale, including food, medical care, laundry, grief counseling or transportation. About two-thirds of these organizations shared resources organically. Similarly, the leaders of the California synagogue also worked to distribute aid. Many families declined to accept help even if they were clearly in need, Levy said. 'They would say, 'That's for somebody else. We'll be OK,' she added. Anderson from the Calvary Church, too, compiled a list of his most vulnerable congregants and began raising money for the congregation. The church raised well over half a million dollars for them, but Anderson ran into a few problems. Many congregants didn't know or hadn't yet met Anderson, the man signing their aid checks. When he'd hear about a person in need, he would get their contact information and send them a text saying, 'Hey, this is Pastor Justin. I'm the new guy. We haven't met yet but I'd love to send you money,' or 'Hey, I'm not a scammer. If you'll give me your bank account (information), I will send you money.' Again, many told him they didn't want the financial help even though they needed it, while others promised to pay it back or forward somehow. 'I had to keep going, like, 'No, no. This is Grace. This is a gift. People love you and want to help you,'' Anderson said. For those in need, donated money was the most helpful compared to unsolicited donated goods, like clothing and canned food. Drew Hanna, who has led relief efforts after wildfires in California and Hawaii through Team Rubicon, a nonprofit, told the LAist he saw 'pallets of clothing just left outside in a parking lot for months after some disasters because there's no place to put it, people don't have resources to sort it.' Levy found it useful to give gift cards to different types of stores and add them to Shabbat kits, delivered every Friday for five weeks. Andrea Mark, now retired, received several of these kits. The home she and her husband Brian built burned down in the Eaton Fires. They stayed at a hotel at first before moving into a two-bedroom apartment in Old Town Pasadena. 'How did they know where we were?' she asked about the temple staff leadership's generous deliveries. 'They did it for weeks and weeks, and then there were all these monetary donations that just blew me away.' She said she felt 'cocooned' by her support system. 'I've always been a strong woman, but my inner strength is fortified immensely by the love for our community and our faith,' Mark said. Congregants with spacious dining rooms and kitchens also hosted Shabbat dinners in those early weeks after the fires. On a Friday in mid-June, Mark opened her doors for one such Shabbat dinner. Peter and Roberta Braun attended as guests. Their home wasn't affected by the fires but they housed six people, a dog and a cat in their house for two weeks during the critical evacuation period. Mark knows how to cook well, as everyone at the dinner could attest. She described the menu to the Deseret News over the phone while stuck in typically dense L.A. traffic the weekend following her Shabbat dinner. A traditional chicken roast, ground in buttermilk the night before, an arugula salad with her homemade mustard and lemon juice dressing, mashed red potatoes, and roasted carrots served with ginger maple syrup. For dessert, diced mangoes, blueberries and lemon juice. After dinner, they walked nearly a mile to the United Methodist Church, where their temple currently hosts Shabbat services. That's also where the Pasadena Temple's temporary offices are. The Mayfield Senior School of Holy Child Jesus, a Catholic high school, offers its space to the burned-down Synagogue's religious school and even hosted Shabbat service days after the fire started. 'It gave a sense of normalcy and reason to get out of whatever hotel room you were in since people were really shaken and isolated,' Levy said. Despite the recent mountain of challenges, Andrea Mark is adamant that they are 'so lucky,' she said. 'It sounds weird to say that we're lucky but we are,' she said. That very day, she had recovered something that was lost. 'Today, I contacted the University of Wisconsin, where Brian earned his PhD in 1972. I wanted to get a copy of his dissertation because I don't have it anymore,' she said. For Mark, the glass is always half full. In February, nearly a month after the fires, she went back to her home, or what was left of it. In her backyard, she found a tangible piece of hope. The tomato plants from her vegetable garden somehow weathered the fires. Little yellow buds sprouted from the lanky stems. 'Of course, these tomatoes are not edible. ... But Mother Nature is so strong that it overcame all of this,' Mark said. 'It's encouraging to see that life goes on, right?' Everyone copes with grief differently. Unlike Mark and Rev. Hardin from Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church, Levy avoided going back to the site of the burned-down synagogue. 'I haven't been able to do it,' she said. 'In fact, I had a dentist appointment just around the corner from the synagogue and I canceled it. I'm not ready,' She said she promised herself to visit the site after it is cleared. The hope is to rebuild the synagogue over the next five years. 'I've seen the news, I've seen the pictures but there's certainly something different when you're actually there.' The Calvary Church also has a long road ahead and needs to raise an additional $5 million or more to rebuild. 'The bigger question is going to be, what does the Palisades look like when this thing's all over? Because people ... are predicting maybe as much as a 50% turnover,' Pastor Anderson added. New construction is expected to be expensive but it's unclear how expensive. Marisela Arechiga, the co-founder of an L.A.-based construction company New Generation, told that builders neither know how long construction will take nor how much it will cost. This is partly because the affected areas are still being cleared. After that, the power and gas lines would need repair. In addition to these delays is the costly permitting and inspection process in L.A. that could force some homeowners to dish out more than $20,000 prior to any construction. 'This is Los Angeles' Katrina,' Arechiga said. 'Katrina has come through, but it came through by way of fire instead of water.' Five years from now, Palisades will look much different than it did before the wildfires, with new people, homes and businesses. All of these changes have a 'trickle-down effect on the Church,' Anderson said. 'The rebuilding of the buildings ... it's expensive but it's straightforward,' he said. 'Rebuilding a community is much more difficult.' Still, he views this moment as a rare chance. Thousands of new families may move in, 'and that feels like a real opportunity for the gospel.' Additional reporting by Tess Crowley.

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