CONTRIBUTED BY ST. DUNSTAN’S
AUBURN — St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church (136 E. Magnolia Ave in Auburn) will celebrate its centennial with a community garden party from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 26.
St. Dunstan’s invites the public to come enjoy the garden, get a tour of the church and help celebrate 100 years of ministry in downtown Auburn.
The very first service was held on Sunday, Jan. 4, 1925, when it was known as Holy Innocents Episcopal Church. The first Holy Innocents building lasted from 1887-1924. It took four years for the church to raise $40,000 to build the new building.
Holy Innocents changed its name to St. Dunstan’s and became a diocesan student center in 1957. In 2019, St. Dunstan’s ceased to be a student center and is now a parish again.
The vestry of St. Dunstan’s has formed a committee focused on honoring the history and heritage of Holy Innocents and St. Dunstan’s, and now it’s hoping to raise $100,000 to create an endowment for the preservation of the historic church.
The campaign, A Future Bigger Than the Past, seeks to honor the church’s legacy as well as plan for the many ways St. Dunstan’s and its members support the community going forward.
“Ever since 1887, people have come to this location on Magnolia Avenue to give thanks to God, to gather for fellowship, study and prayer and to seek and serve Christ in all persons.
We think we have a compelling story to tell,” said the Rev. Thomas Joyner, rector of St. Dunstan’s. “One hundred years of relationships connecting people with God and one another in all the moments of life matters. And that those relationships connect us with Jesus, who came to be with us not because of something we lost or to fix a mistake, but because it was always God’s intention to be with us. The relationships matter: to find community, identity and belonging is a liberating and life-giving story.”
For more information about the church and its activities visit www.stdunstansauburn.org.
