More Than Asphalt

Every decade or so, a parking lot needs a slurry seal and fresh striping. It's not glamorous. It's not the kind of thing that makes the newsletter. But if you've ever watched a four-year-old wobble down a gentle slope on a bike with training wheels, or heard the distant whine of a remote control car navigating the curves on a Sunday afternoon, you know that our parking lot is doing more than parking.

It's community space.

St. Stephen's lot has seen a lot of life. Thousands of teenagers have learned to drive here — white-knuckled parents in the passenger seat, the smell of new driver anxiety in the air, and enough three-point turns to fill a DMV waiting room. Families bring their bikes on weekday mornings. Kids test the hills. The preschool spills out onto it. Neighbors who've never set foot inside the church have used this lot like it belongs to them — because in a real sense, it does.

We want to keep it that way.

We're raising $10,000 for a once-a-decade slurry seal and restriping — routine maintenance that protects the surface, improves the lines, and keeps the lot functional and safe for everything it already does. We've done the homework. The quotes are in, the work is straightforward. We just need the community that uses this space to help take care of it.

And here's the part worth celebrating: if we reach our $10,000 goal, a generous donor has committed an additional $2,000 for a basketball hoop on the freshly sealed surface. Which means this campaign isn't just about maintenance. It's about adding something — a reason to show up, stay a while, and shoot around with someone you might not have met otherwise.

The lot has always been more than asphalt. Help us keep it that way.

St. Stephen's Episcopal Church is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Gifts are tax-deductible to the extent provided by law.