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Celebrating All Saints’ 125th Anniversary
Fall 2019, we celebrated the 125th anniversary of the founding of this parish. Soon after, the 125th Anniversary Task Force was convened to develop a plan to honor our past, embrace our present, and envision our future. In early 2020, they created a relatively modest fundraising project that would allow us to make some gentle refurbishments to our sanctuary in honor of this milestone. They presented this proposal to the Vestry in March, just a few days after the pandemic forced us all into lockdown. The Vestry and task force members all agreed that 2020 was not the time to engage a project of even this modest scale. Nevertheless, the task force has continued to work in preparation for the day when we will be able to gather once again in the sanctuary. They have done the work that can be done and paved the way for us to continue celebrating the past, present, and future of All Saints Parish.
Below are the projects the task force has planned; some are in process, others are on hold pending funding.
Honoring our Past
Conserving the Resting Chapel reredos (“The Five Angels”), painted by Julia DeWolf Addison, wife of our first rector—in progress
While we cannot move forward with the actual conservation of these reredos or the ones in the Langdon Chapel at this time, we have found a way to bring this beautiful artwork to the parish community through notecards using these images. You now have the opportunity to purchase cards and support the Massachusetts Council of Church’s One Church Fund all at the same time. We have also created a tour of these beautiful works, which you can view on the website.
Moving Rick Montross’s invaluable A Tour of All Saints Parish to a dedicated section of this website—in progress, with a plan to update and reprint the booklet—on hold.
Creating a permanent historical exhibit in the rear of the sanctuary—on hold, but we are gathering ideas for exhibits and pricing out display modules—and working on some digital exhibits in the meantime.
Digitizing and framing historic vintage photos of the Elizabeth Addicks Parish House (1910)—completed except for hanging the framed photos.
Embracing Our Present—The Children’s Area
Under the guidance of our Family Minister, and the Family Ministry advisory group, we hope to gently spruce up the children’s area (“the rug”) with improved storage, new seating cushions, new books and toys, and decorative wall panels or hangings—on hold
Envisioning Our Future
A new (and matching) Advent array of altar hangings and Eucharistic vestments in beautiful Sarum blue —on hold.
Votive candlestands. An increasingly popular devotional, two new candlestands will allow more people to light candles for prayer intentions during our services—on hold.
New chairs. Substituting some of the pews in the Langdon Chapel area with chairs and adding chairs in the Resting Chapel will create more flexible worship and gathering spaces in the sanctuary. Chairs can be given in honor or memory of individuals and memorialized with small plaques—on hold, although a sample chair has been received.