We are the last frontier and neighbors helping neighbors.
And that's what we're doing. One. Two. Three.
The Brighton Chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Anchorage, Alaska, has served the community for 50 years.
I usually fix this stuff.
I don't usually take it apart.
This building is being torn down to make way for the construction of a new temple that was announced in January 2023.
This new temple is announced, we’re just really excited to to triple our footprint to better serve the membership in Alaska and Yukon territory.
Before the bulldozers, and instead of sending the building materials to a landfill, plans were made to allow community organizations from across the state to come and take what they need. Many involved with this project feel it is exactly what Jesus Christ would want to happen. I have just felt through this whole process that this is what the Lord wants us to do, and that He’s pleased and He will help us even if we don’t know exactly how to make it work. The First United Methodist Church is starting a preschool. Anchorage, like most cities, has a role lack in licensed childcare, and so we're hoping to fill some of that need, especially for the downtown community.
The Alaska Children's Institute for the Performing Arts in Kenai is rebuilding after a fire three years ago.
These materials are a godsend, literally breathing life into a lot of other projects around the state, much like ours. I think today what we collected was like 18 doors, a whole bunch of trim and finish work, uh, handicapped access ramp. The curtain system, which will be on our stage. So what looks like not much here will save us tens of thousands of dollars, and we'll be put to work enriching the lives of young people and giving them a purpose for years to come. The New Hope Baptist Church collected materials for their entire organization. We are here to see what we can do not only to help our church, but our organization, the Alaska Baptist Resource Network. What we get today will not only help our church, but of the 122 churches of the Southern Baptist denomination in Alaska. The Islamic Community Center of Anchorage, Alaska, needed a podium for their Sunday school. The idea sharing physical things as we do today might really give sort of call it the trust between the communities that, yeah,
we can contribute to you and hopefully we can contribute to the Church in the future.
The city of Nenana, 300 miles north of Anchorage, came to collect many items, including the basketball hoop, to go into a new recreation hall. We’ve got long, dark winters without a lot of activities for kids, so this will give them something fun to do. And for the members who have been attending this meetinghouse, the future is bright. When the building caught fire back in 2007, I remember walking in through the chapel and seeing the ceiling all over the pews and the snow everywhere, and it was just a tragic feeling, a feeling of tragedy. And I worried that it would feel like that coming and seeing everything dismantled. But instead there's just this energy and excitement about what's to come and what’s going to be happening for the Church here in Alaska as it grows and for the community as it grows around that too, as well.