Weiser Community Church dedicates its new addition

The Weiser Community Church celebrated completion of a new 2,520 square-foot addition that includes classrooms and a nursery on the back of the main building on East Main Street.

 Pastor Steve Penner said the great thing about the much-needed addition is the church did it without taking on any debt. Church leaders were not going to start on the addition until the funds were raised, he said.

 “We were not going to build until we had the funding in hand,” he said.

 Penner said the expectation was that it would take a year to 18 months to raise the money, but it went much faster with the generosity of church members. Pledges and donations were raised in a short six months to pay for the $140,000 project.

 Members of the non-denominational church dedicated the addition on Sunday, Oct. 21, after service with prayers and cake. Contractors on the project were also invited to participate, including Karl Gresehover, a retired contractor who donated his time and construction skills to the project. Danilee Bettis did the building design and plans at no charge to the church.

 “This will be an asset to the community,” Gresehover said.

 Billie Wright, who has attended the church since the 1970s, said the additional space has been needed for some time.

 “I think it’s a long time coming and it is wonderful,” she said.

 The project started back in March with the dismantling and removal of an older mobile home that sat behind the church. The actual construction on the new addition began in mid-March and took about six months to compete.

 Local contractors were used as much as possible, Penner said. Hata Electric did the electrical work and Comfort Zone installed the HVAC system. 

 The 36-foot by 70-foot addition includes a new 600-square foot roomy nursery and bathroom. The old nursery room was small and cramped and will be used from now on for storage.

 A larger room in the new addition that totals about 1,200 square feet will be used for Christian education classrooms and meeting rooms for the church’s youth organizations. A partition allows the room to be split into two classrooms. 

 Penner, who has been the pastor for the last 26 years, said the church members had been wanting to add more space for a few years. 

 “We didn’t have any classrooms and it was just inadequate and had been for a long time,” he said.

 The church also redid the back parking area as part of the project. A couple of parking spaces were lost there, but the church actually gained additional parking spaces when the parallel parking on the east side of the church along Third Street was converted to diagonal parking.

 The church received approval from the city council in April to create additional parking spaces along East Third Street. The plan removed some of the grass and created diagonal parking on the street similar to the parking in front of magistrate court. The church will put in a new sidewalk, curbs and gutters, along with paving the location.

 The church sees about 100 regular worshippers out of a total congregation number of 300. The church is not associated with any specific church or denomination.