MUCH-NEEDED renovations have begun at St Peter’s Church on Mahatma Gandhi Road in Durban’s Point area. Built in 1922, this heritage church has long served the community. The church runs a soup kitchen four days a week and hands out sandwiches and food hampers to the impoverished community. With a leaking roof, the church was struggling to keep its charitable work afloat.
Now, thanks to donations from their congregants, and the broader Durban community, the church’s roof is now fully waterproofed. However, this is just one of the maintenance tasks on its to-do list and the church hopes to raise funds to repaint the towering building that stands as a beacon of hope for the Point community.
Reverend Father Geroges Bidzogo said the church received a donation of six bags of cement from another parish as well as donations of about R2 500 from their congregations. This was added to funds raised by church member and PRO, Cecile Kathan. The waterproofing project began on October 18 and drew to a close five days later.
Read the original article here: Church left in the lurch as funds dry up
“There is no leaking water coming through now. We have had two heavy rains since the work was done and there was a slight leak in the church, but the contractors came back and fixed it,” said Bidzogo.
“This is a heritage church. We really expect that people come on board so we can maintain this church. It is more than 88 years old. Soon we will reach 100 years. That makes it very difficult to maintain. As we maintain the roof today, we might realise tomorrow that the wall is falling. We have tried hard. All the windows were wood, and we haven’t changed all of that. We really need help. One of the things we really need to do is paint. We want to start with the hall,” he said.
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Repainting the church will help to raise income opportunities.
“The hall brings us a small income. We really don’t rely on the offering because most of the congregation is not working. They can barely give R10. We need the hall to be refurbished with paint, new lights, and new fans. Then we can host weddings, events, baptisms and anniversaries. That will become a source of income for us,” he said.
The parish belongs to the Catholic Archdiocese of Durban.
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