Pastry Purchase from Collegeville Church will Help Community Outreach

Catherine Kernen submitted the following information:

For the next few weeks only, you can enjoy a delicious taste of Collegeville’s history by ordering your “benevolent” Collegeville Prosperity Buns with optional slivered almonds and butter icing from —then they are gone for an entire year! These buns were originally made by the local Collegeville Bakery during the Depression Era; the buns offered a taste of prosperity in less-than-prosperous times, and eating the buns was believed to help increase the wealth of our local residents.

To order, just call 610-489-4223 between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays or leave your order on voicemail. Cost of the buns is $1 each or $10 for a dozen. Proceeds benefit Trinity Church’s Outreach Ministries. You can pick up your special buns between noon and 1 p.m. on either Sunday, Dec. 4 or Dec. 11.

Proceeds from the bun sales will go toward the church’s service to the local community and beyond, including the purchase of toiletries, food, school supplies, holiday treats, yarn and other materials used to produce hats, mittens and blankets for those in need as well as preemie caps for a local hospital. A women’s shelter, a homeless center, Grace Bean’s Soup Kitchen, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and other outreach centers are among the organizations supported by Trinity Church’s service efforts.

Trinity Church was organized in 1854 as a “place of meeting for all Christians.” Its benefactor and founder, Abraham Hunsicker, was committed to using his income to provide an advanced education for boys, and so Freeland Seminary (a high school) was founded in 1848 followed by a comparable school for girls, the Pennsylvania Female College. Both faculty and students attended the church. In 1869 the Freeland Seminary property was purchased by the Reformed Church so that they might have a college and seminary – Ursinus College. The faculty from the previous schools stayed on and the faculty and students continued to attend the church.  In 1888 the congregation asked to be received into membership of the Reformed Church, which now, as a result of mergers, is the United Church of Christ.

The church building has always been a meeting place for and the community. Until Bomberger Hall was built in 1891, the church served as the site for the college’s Religion Department as well as their assembly room and lecture hall and site for commencements.

For more information, please call 610-489-4223 between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. or e-mail trinityucc1854@verizon.net. Trinity Church’s website is www.trinity.nu.