Dear Editor,
We’d like to thank Chris McCray, owner of Sticks & Bones, for hosting a very successful fundraiser last week. Also, many thanks to Kaki and Mark Scott for serving some wonderful food. Also, the music provided by Big Stripes was a perfect compliment.
For those not in the know, the Ruidosa Church is a former Catholic Church built in 1916 in the border town of Ruidosa, but abandoned in the 1950s as the Rio Grande water started to dry up and most of the farming community moved on. After decades of neglect, our 501(c)3 nonprofit was formed to restore the church to all its glory. The adobe church has what is believed to be the largest adobe arch framing the altar area and bell towers — all planted on the remote road west from Presidio.
Thanks also to all the volunteers that have been showing up at our monthly adobe brick-making days. They are literally creating the building blocks for our restoration. Haven’t got your hands in the mud yet? Don’t worry, we’ve got thousands more needed, so see our social media to follow us and look for adobe-making dates.
Last year we got our hands dirty — or actually local adobe pro Joey Benton and team did — stabilizing the right bell tower of the church. It was a great achievement and a tangible one that gave us inspiration to push forward.
We’ve also been encouraged to receive two grants this past year — one from the Texas Historical Commission (THC) and one from the Summerlee Foundation. The THC grant will fund a Historic Structures Report, kind of a roadmap of what renovation is needed and how to achieve it, to be conducted by our local friends at the architectural firm MUDLAB in Marfa. The Summerlee grant helped fund a local match for that THC grant.
Grants are great, but they often come with those matches, meaning we need significant donations from the community, companies, and other nonprofits to be able to keep our progress going.
Our short-term goal is restoration of the entryway, where a bell hung originally and beckoned the community to masses, weddings, funerals, and celebrations. We’ve got the bell, and under the rallying cry “Raise the Bell,” we intend to once again hang it at the church and hear it ring. Our long-term goal is a complete restoration to make the church a foundation for telling the rich history of the Ruidosa and Candelaria communities and a gathering place to share the history with visitors and the current residents along the river.
Thanks again for all of y’all’s support. Donations are appreciated at ruidosachurch.org. Follow us at fb.com/FriendsofRuidosaChurch and @ruidosachurch.
Mike Green
Friends of the Ruidosa Church, Board President
Ruidosachurch@gmail.com