‘It’s in our DNA,’ Baptists help city spruce up parks
ateway Baptist Church and Looxahoma Baptist Church members teamed up to help the city spruce up its parks last week. Here Brant Smith paints the Shay engine. (Chris Peterson photo)
The Shay Locomotive at the end of Nucleus Avenue has a shiny new coat of black paint, thanks to the efforts of the Gateway Baptist Church in Columbia Falls.
Each spring, the church reaches out the city on any park projects it might need done, pastor Bruce Crockett said.
This year the local congregation was joined by pastor Joey Stevens and members of the Looxahoma Baptist Church in Mississippi.
Crockett is originally from Mississippi and has been friends with Stevens for years.
Stevens was accompanied by several members of his church, along with young men interning with the Gateway Church this summer. They were hard at it last Wednesday painting the old steam engine.
Stevens said members paid their own way to get up here. In addition to doing work in Columbia Falls parks, they were also helping out some elderly folks with home renovations and did prayer walks through town, praying for folks at every block they stopped at. In the mornings, they held woodworking classes for kids at the Columbia Falls Junior High.
They also planned to take a break and visit Glacier National Park while they were here.
Crockett said “it was in the DNA” of the Gateway Church to give back to the community and they were grateful to the city for allowing them to help.
They’ve been volunteering for various projects (one year they painted the entire bandshell at Marantette Park) since 2017.
All told, Crockett said about 45 people pitch in to help each summer.