How Chestnut Creek Heritage Chapel Came To Be
Several cousins searching for their ancestors began to connect with each other on one of the genealogy websites. In November 2012, they met in the Chestnut Creek Cemetery to find their ancestors’ graves. For some of these cousins, this was their first face-to-face meeting. Lynn Cerney envisioned a reunion and the “Coopers Cousins” began making plans.
This reunion was held in April 2013 when Chestnut Creek Baptist Church allowed the Cousins to use their old building. Being in this old church sparked an interest in the building itself; in March 2014 Pam Persons and Denise Scarbrough and community members Keith Edwards and Hazel Strength met with the pastor and another member of CCBC to discuss the possibility of acquiring the building. The following month the church voted to allow the group to repair the property and use it for the community if they’d form a nonprofit organization.
The name Chestnut Creek Heritage Chapel was selected and bylaws were written. A Board of Directors made up of Denise Scarbrough, Pam Persons, and Lynn Cerney was formed and included one CCBC member as specified in the agreement. In August Ola Taylor was invited to join the board. By September the paperwork was done and CCHC had become a legal nonprofit organization and held its first board meeting the following month.
Two more major milestones occurred. After negotiations, an agreement was reached in December 2014, and the old building was deeded to CCHC by the deacons of Chestnut Creek Baptist Church. Then in December 2015 the U.S. government granted us 501 (c ) (3) status. In 2016 Lynn Cerney asked to serve in an advisory capacity rather than as a board member. She was replaced by Becky Lamons. In 2018, a new member was added, Samuel Lynn Blackmon.
Even before the deed was acquired, work had begun to save the building, repair it, preserve its history and the history of the community, and use it for the good of the people. That work goes on, and on, and on!
