EXETER, Pa. — From SkyCam 16, you can see the Slocum Chapel in Exeter, on the avenue that shares the borough's name.
History shows the church has been part of the fabric of this community for decades. It was that history that served as the motivation for Pastor Guy Giordano and his wife Barbara to work hard to restore the church's steeple.
"Well it totally inspires me because history is just going by the wayside," said Barbara. "I mean, I just read in the paper the other day two more churches are closing and the last thing we want for this church to do is to end up in the landfill, they'll just bulldoze it down and put something else up. So for us preserving the history and keeping it the same," she said.
A task like restoring a steeple isn't easy. The pair raised close to $30,000 to make it happen and then went through six different contractors.
"It was in the middle of the pandemic and all these things were going on and the work, everybody was swamped with work," explained Guy. "You have to be an artist to do this work. It's really a difficult thing to put a steeple backup on a chapel like this."
But these two say watching the steeple go up was like watching a ballet.
"You know what the day that we were here and the crane was here and the men were meeting the crane up there. It was just it was a moment in history. And I know it really was a historical event. So we'll put that in our archives and maybe generations to come and we'll actually see what's going on," added Guy.
A moment they are sharing with the community at large this Saturday at a dedication ceremony filled with food, craft vendors and a history lesson.
"The historian is going to come in at three o'clock, and she put together a pamphlet," added Barbara.
The dedication celebration will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday at the chapel in Exeter.
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