New roof installed at near century-old Harrison church

A Harrison church that climbs four stories and is prominently along Freeport Road received a $44,000 makeover this month in the form of a new roof.

“It was needed,” said Walter Rutkowski, trustees chairperson at Grace United Methodist Church. “Someone going through the drive-thru at CVS called the office on a windy day to report flapping shingles.”

The nearly 100-year-old church is adjacent to the pharmacy at 1333 Freeport Road.

Workers from Whalen Contracting in New Kensington performed the work and confirmed that some of the shingles had blown off, said Rutkowski, a member of the church for 22 years and board chair for about 17 years.

The roofing project took about a week. It was paid, in part, by grants from the Ira and Frances Wood Charitable Trust and the estate of late church member Jean Shumaker.

Grace United Methodist was founded in a small, white building along Pleasantville Road, which is nearby and leads to Burtner Road and the Route 28 expressway.

It moved to its current location in 1928.

In its heyday, the church boasted a congregation of hundreds. It has a unique rooftop space where it hosted teen dance parties in the 1960s and ’70s. Since at least the mid-1980s, the church has housed the Agape Thrift Store to help people buy clothes and household items at a bargain price.

The secondhand store is in the church basement and is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesdays.

“It was a great work of God that permitted us to be able to get the roof,” Pastor Diane Randolph said. “We are expecting more great works of God.”

Randolph was appointed leader at the church last year and has been settling into the business of getting to know the people, the community and the needs, she said.

Late last fall, Randolph and church leaders extended a hand to a Kittanning-based ministry, Harvest Church, to share space in the Freeport Road building.

Grace has Sunday services at 9:30 a.m.; Harvest follows at 11 a.m.