St. George’s opens new patio

With the cutting of a red ribbon that had been draped in front of the newly remodeled patio entrance at St. George’s Episcopal Church on Sunday, the congregation was able to enter through the front door after using side entrances for about four months.

The updating of the patio and grounds was a church project that began in the discussion stage over a year ago.

In celebration of its 50th birthday, the church looked at several areas of improvement and outreach.

The congregation voted on proposed projects; one was to remodel the front entrance.

The goal of the renovating church grounds, the Rev. Amy Pringle said, was to give the members of the church and the community areas for quiet reflection.

“When we were looking for bids we put together a booklet of our hopes and dreams,” Pringle said. “We wanted the entrance to the church to be welcoming.”

She added that the old entrance did not reflect the spirit of the congregation.

“This is a warm and wonderful congregation. I call it the ‘Cheers’ church where everyone knows your name and everyone is welcomed. A year ago we hired Larry [Tison] as our landscape architect,” Pringle said.

In July the fence went up around the front door, blocking not only the entrance but also the church bell. But the bell rang again on Sunday, just in time for All Saints Day.

The entrance is now open and inviting, with beautiful landscaping.

“This gives us a transitional space from the parking lot to worship space,” Pringle said. “Most of all it’s now a space open to the public. We now have four prayer gardens.”

Pringle wanted to thank all that helped including Tison, Marla And Ed Richmond that donated all the brickwork from Angelus Block, situational engineer Eric Boghossian, Norik Ebrahamian of Patrick Landscaping and Andy Dick of Showcase Properties.

“And I want to thank Joyce Davison who chaired everything for our 50th birthday,” Pringle said. “And Shelley Erwin who gave me Larry’s [Tison] name and then asked who was going to [supervise] that the project was done on time, and that was how she became the patio project panel chair.”