Grand Junction’s 120-year-old Handy Chapel, a historic center for the Western Slope’s small, isolated African-American community, has raised about $68,000 to secure the grants needed to preserve it.
Handy Chapel matriarch Josephine Dickey, the 88-year-old great-granddaughter of one of the men who helped build it, told The Post that community support has made it possible for the dilapidated little church to unlock more than $200,000 in state and federal funding.
Badly needed restoration work can begin this spring on the tiny White Street chapel, Dickey said.
The chapel and small adjoining house always have been more than places of worship, she said. They have been a refuge for the displaced and down and out, regardless of color, for parts of three centuries.
“God can do anything. Handy Chapel is going to be for his glory,” Dickey said. “I know He put it in people’s hearts to help us. After all these years, who’d believe it.”
Barbara Anderson, manager of the chapel’s building fund, said church members started with $15,000 in seed money and last year raised more than $53,000 in so-called matching funds, beating their July 31 deadline. Their efforts secure awards made last year by the State Historical Fund and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
“It’s a tough time to raise money for projects, but the community really turned out for Handy Chapel,” said Patrick Eidman of Colorado Preservation Inc. “We’re thrilled because what the church has gone through over the trajectory of time is remarkable.
Preservation Inc., which will serve as grant administrator, had listed Handy Chapel as one of Colorado’s “Most Endangered Places” in early 2011.
“This little building tells the story of the African-American community in western Colorado,” Eidman said then.
He estimated reconstruction work could take about a year or longer because the chapel has serious issues, from its foundation to its electrical and heating systems.
Dickey and Anderson said achievement of their fundraising goal wouldn’t have been possible without two important benefactors, educator and former state legislator Tillie Bishop and retired banker and philanthropist Herb Bacon.
“We could not have raised our match without their hard work and dedication,” Anderson said.
El Pomar Foundation provided $10,000. And, Dickey said, they were also moved and greatly helped by many small donations.
Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com
