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The Port Albert Church has been saved from private sale after a community group raised $50,000 to buy it.
The church was run by the Wellsford Cooperating Parish.
Services ceased three years ago due to a dwindling congregation and the Methodist Church announced plans to sell the building.
The Port Albert Church Preservation Society formed after a series of public meetings to brainstorm on how to save the church.
Last year the society it reached an agreement with the Methodist Church to purchase the building, if it could raise the money within a year.
Society chair Lynette Gubb says the support from the community was fantastic and the deal was finalised in February.
“It was a mammoth task but the number of people supporting the movement was incredible,” Mrs Gubb says. “We’ve achieved what we set out to do and have kept the church for the community.”
The money was donated by locals and descendants of Albertlanders, with no community or Council grant funding.
Throughout the process, a small group have run services at the church on the second Sunday of each month at 1pm, with members of the congregation taking turns at running the service. These services will continue and there will be an Anzac remembrance service on April 10, at 1.30pm.
The church was built in 1885. Heritage New Zealand lists the church and Sunday school as ‘Buildings of Interest’, but the cottage behind the church is a Category 2 Historic Place, listed in 1982.
The society is devising a plan to meet the ongoing costs of running the hall.
“It doesn’t stop now. We still need to maintain it and do some renovations,” Mrs Gubb says.
