ACCESSIBLE ALL SAINTS
By Partners for Sacred Places and the Church Buildings for Collaborative Partnerships project (CBCP) of the Episcopal Dioceses of Indianapolis and Northern Indiana - 2025
The Episcopal Church of All Saints, an anchor of the Old Northside Neighborhood of Indianapolis, lives an expanding tradition of “welcoming all.”
From racial integration in the 1950s, to being the first Episcopal Church in the country to regularly ordain a woman as priest in the 1970’s, to, in the 1980’s, opening its pews to give the homeless a warm place to sleep during the winter, to welcoming the gay community in the 80’s and 90’s as one of the few churches in Indy willing to minister to those suffering from AIDS, All Saints lived its welcome.
The brick American Gothic Revival church building, dedicated in 1911, has had one major challenge to welcoming “all”: accessibility. The biggest obstacle: no restroom serving the sanctuary.
While there are restrooms in the Parish Hall next door, easily getting to them requires awkward physical challenges. People must get to the front of the nave, then go outside, enter the Parish Hall building through a back door and navigate an elevator to reach the restrooms. Whew - no one can do all that in a hurry.
Eliminating the need for this challenge required more than an average bathroom installation. Parishioner, Freida Thompson, and Fr. Tom Honderich led the project for two years, facing numerous obstacles such as the lack of water and sewer lines near the desired location. Crews had to dig through the front yard of a neighboring property, Dayspring Center, to access an old sewer line, which required busting through buried demolished building foundations. Water line installation required creatively extending a line from the parish hall through the church undercroft, then adding an on-demand hot water heater for the bathroom sink.
The project took over two years to complete, including building a glass encasement around the restroom so the new space maintains the historic integrity of the building while being quiet and unobtrusive. The “welcome” feature included a concrete ADA ramp installed so people can enter the front door of the church without using stairs.
Was it worth all that effort and expense of nearly $400,000? Parishioner Patricia Griffin asks, what price can you place on seeing a long-time parishioner joyously return to worship after leaving a few years ago saying she couldn’t come back until a restroom was easily accessible? Or on NOT seeing a concert-goer leave at intermission due to bathroom access issues.
These are priceless moments, and they continue. The project was essential for attracting new parishioners, maintaining space-use partnerships such as with a Haitian congregation, Sacred Harp Singers, and the Merton Society. All Saints looks forward to hosting more community events and concerts now that it is able to advertise its space as handicapped accessible.
The All Saints bathroom and ramp accessibility project was funded by parishioners, with the help of a $10,000 grant from the Church Buildings for Collaborative Partnerships (CBCP) Phase 1 capital grant program.
For more information, contact The Episcopal Church of All Saints, Indianapolis, or Linda Buskirk, CBCP Project Director, at info@cbcpindiana.org.