Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

As the First Congregational Church of West Tisbury gathers on Oct. 30 to celebrate the completion of the first important steps in the restoration of our church building, we want to thank our town for the generous grant of $150,000 of Community Preservation Act funds. The grant fully covered the work to shore up our foundation, and allowed us to dedicate the funds we were able to raise through our capital campaign entirely to the restoration of our fence, the exterior of the sanctuary and to new plantings. We are proud to be able to present to our town our church building as it should be, and we thank all who supported us in our endeavors. As well as members of our church, many people and businesses from our Island community gave their financial support to this work or contributed their skills to make it happen.

We particularly thank Vince and Heather Maciel, who donated their work on necessary tree removal; Vineyard craftsman Larry Schubert for his beautiful work on our fence; Williams Construction for the work on foundation and siding; and David Geiger, who donated his design work on our landscaping, as well as many beautiful plants from his own collection. Thank you, too, all you volunteers who dedicated hours to the project, digging, cleaning, moving heavy objects. We still have much to do inside the sanctuary and to the inside and exterior of the parish hall, but we are energized by this success, and we hope many of our neighbors will stop by to see our church and realize that without them, we couldn’t have done it. Thank you all.

Dionis Montrowl, West Tisbury