Memories of the longtime United Church of Cloverdale – home to the Cloverdale Food Pantry, Heaven’s Closet Thrift Shop and several community programs – sprung from a trio of longtime congregants and church leaders, as they convened before the final Sunday service on Sept. 28, two days before the church formally closes its doors on Sept. 30.
Huddled next to the office, not far from the 119-year-old stone-and-shingle sanctuary, the friends recalled the church’s successes: A popular high school breakfast program, the women’s fellowship, job training for local Latinos, a children’s nursery and the scholarships for first-time university students.
“It’s a bit sad, but on the other hand, we’re hoping the mission of this church can continue in this community,” said Bob Timm, a congregant for the last 37 years, whose wife, Janice, was the minister of music for 32 years.
Despite stacks of black and yellow storage bins sitting at the back of the sanctuary, the church stands ready for one last service, with well-worn hymnals tucked comfortably inside the pews of the amphitheater-style seating.
The final service will begin at 10 a.m., followed by an hour-long potluck.
The decision to dissolve the 156-year-old church came as its congregants, many whom are in their “70s and older” has shrunk, said congregant Holly Wagner.
Timm noted that Cloverdale is not immune to the national trends of decreasing church attendance. He’s noticed that fewer families are raising their children in church; the time dedicated for Sunday service replaced by morning and early afternoon soccer and baseball games. He also said that full-time working families want to spend time together on the weekends.
National statistics underscore Timm’s comments. Data from a Gallup poll showed that between 2000 and 2003, an average of 42% of U.S. adults attended religious services weekly or every other week. From 2021 to 2023, that figure dropped to 30%.
As a result, “a lot of churches find they can’t maintain the programming because of lower attendance,” Timm said.
It wasn’t always that way at the United Church of Cloverdale. When the Wagner and Timm families joined in the late 1980s, they remembered the church as a “mostly elderly congregation,” but it grew more diverse in the 1990s, marking the church’s “hey day,” for families, Timm said.
At one point, the church had at least five choirs for numerous age-groups, joined national conferences and attended national-level choir festivals. There were years of summer camps, monthly women’s breakfasts, Christmas musicals and memories of hundreds of children at Sunday school.
The church’s current longest and oldest member, Marilyn Michelon, 90, who joined in 1960 and raised all her children there, is proud to have been part of an “open and affirming” congregation – one that pledged to welcome all and especially supported the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.
“I’ve been with them for 65 years. It’s been my home. My church home, my church family, has been a very important part of my life,” she said. She has plans to continue attending monthly women’s breakfasts with her fellow congregants after the church formally closes.
According to the church’s historic records, the United Church of Cloverdale was formed from “the first church organized” in the town, with its history dating back to 1869. It officially became the United Church of Cloverdale in 1979 when the First Congregational Church, formed in 1869, and the United Methodist Church, formed in 1865, merged.
The land for the prominent stone church — a landmark for many locals in the town — was donated by the Kleiser family, a pioneer of the Cloverdale community. The building, sometimes referred to as the “Ivy Church,” was designed by Berkeley architect Francis W. Reid and constructed in 1906, its mostly-wood interior likley built from locally-sourced Redwood donated by a family with lumber-industry ties, Timm said.
The property, which houses the church, a worn-down Sunday school building and office, will maintain a “hopeful” future and a “continuation of community service,” Holly Wagner said.
The church will donate the property to La Familia Sana, a nonprofit that offers mental health, housing and family-based services to the community – the “historically underserved and underinvested communities in Cloverdale and Geyserville,” primarily centered around immigrants and farmworkers, said Jade Weymouth, the nonprofit’s executive director.
Leaders from the church and La Familia Sana have discussed the contribution for a little over a year. “We’re not walking into this lightly,” Weymouth said, repeatedly underscoring both the “mourning” surrounding the church’s legacy and the “joyfulness” in the potential growth of the community benefits.
While the property transfer will take place on Sept. 30, Weymouth said she does not know when the new site will open. But she already envisions how this location could benefit the community and nonprofit alike, with more confidential meeting areas, space for larger on-site workshops and the potential to bring more direct services “to the northernmost point of Sonoma County, so families don’t have to drive to Santa Rosa for all their services,” she said.
In addition, she said the roughly two-block move north will bring La Familia Sana just a stone’s throw from Cloverdale High School on Cloverdale Boulevard, noting that this space may make it easier for busy parents facilitating school drop-offs nearby.
“We’ll be along their route,” she said. “…Families, a parent or grandparent can drop off their child at school, go receive mental health services at La Familia Sana, pick up their free food boxes, maybe some diapers when they’re there.”
She also noted the nonprofit would offer healthy nutrition workshops and provide help with work and benefit assistance applications.
“That for me is embedding ourselves into the community,” she said. “We’re constantly trying to meet the needs of our community, and we know that this is a need for our community.”
While all three buildings need new roofs and the Sunday school building could use “a little bit of love,” she’s considering ways to get more community input and engagement to ensure this space’s potential is fully realized for years to come.
“Personally, I’m really encouraged by what they do and what they could do,” said Richard Wagner, as he stood at the back of the church property with his wife Holly and Timm, later adding, “I think most of us are relieved that it’s not being sold, property torn down.”
You can reach Staff Writer Jennifer Sawhney at 707-521-5346 or jennifer.sawhney@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @sawhney_media.