Smartsville Church Restoration Fund, Inc.
SCRFI is a non-profit group whose mission is to restore the historic 1871 former Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception in Smartsville, California for community use.
It's a massive undertaking, as the building had sustained water damage from the 1980's. With a new roof in place in 2005 the huge structure was given hope of being a real visitors center and Gold Rush museum one day. Our current project is to restore the enormous bell tower. For now we only open the church to the public a few times a year to show our progress and our needs.
We're volunteers. I'm honored to be secretary of the group and have helped with our big fund-raiser each year since 2007 called Pioneer Day. On behalf of this special event I've made several videos which showcase our work and highlight our needs. All but one is accompanied by my banjo music and so I see it as fitting to include them here for you to learn about our work. Scroll to the left to see all thirteen videos.