ISLE OF WIGHT — Rachael Buchanan is brimming with excitement and ideas. She talks like she and the staff of the small brick church outside of Smithfield are going to revolutionize the historic tourism industry – and they just might, if Buchanan has her way.
Buchanan became the executive director at Historic St. Luke’s Church in Isle of Wight on Nov. 25, after a long career as a development director with other nonprofits, including the Red Cross and Planned Parenthood. When she first saw the opening listed this summer, Buchanan thought it was a joke. It was just too perfect of an opportunity, she said at the time. Now, she’s at the helm of one of the oldest churches in America, and she has big ideas about bringing St. Luke’s into the future.
The church has been through three major restoration efforts over the past 120 years and predates many of the area’s major historic landmarks, including Williamsburg and Jamestown. It was used as a stable for soldiers’ horses during the Civil War and has stood since the middle of the 17th century. Despite its history, St. Luke’s is still relatively little-known in the wider world.
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14477 Benn¿s Church Boulevard, Smithfield, VA 23430, USA
“I’m looking forward to getting it well-known outside of Isle of Wight,” Buchanan said. “It’s Isle of Wight’s jewel, but it’s a national historic site.”
Buchanan talks a mile a minute, reeling off ideas that she hopes will get people as excited about St. Luke’s as she is — and increase donations in the process, because many of her ideas won’t come cheap.
For starters, Buchanan wants to give the site a facelift, updating signage, fences and landscaping to give the church more physical visibility, which Buchanan believes will help in her quest to raise the church’s national profile. As she puts it, “Before I go out and sell it, I want to polish it up.”
Before Buchanan can fire the starting gun on many of her big ideas, she must weather the church’s busiest time of the year – the stretch between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
Many events are on the schedule, including three Christmas Eve services, and there’s an uptick in donations as people start to get into the giving spirit — not a bad problem for a non-profit to have, but one that will leave Buchanan spending a lot of her holiday writing thank-you notes.
“I don’t envy her honeymoon period,” said Charlotte Klamer, the outgoing executive director.
Buchanan received just four days of on-site training last week before Klamer handed over the keys. “It’s trial by fire. Oh, fun,” Buchanan laughed. “I like a challenge.”
The church will host its annual Christmas Open House on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, which will double as an unofficial welcome for Buchanan – by then, she will have about a week as executive director under her belt.
Klamer said the church shifted from “a sleepy little historic church” in the direction of a functional business during her more than nine years as director.
“What everybody wanted was to make it more competitive in the tourism industry,” Klamer said, noting that Buchanan was chosen to take charge of St. Luke’s in part because of her background in fundraising.
Buchanan plans to seek out corporate partnerships and government grants, which have been a major contributor to the church’s rehabilitation efforts. The church just completed a $500,000 preservation project, financed by a federal grant and a matching contribution from the Smithfield-Luter Foundation.
Buchanan said she also has plenty of grant-writing experience – she wrote her first proposal when she was 11, as a Girl Scout seeking funding for large-print Bibles for her grandfather’s church. She said fundraising is in her blood and her greatest challenge will be learning the ins and outs of preservation.
“It’s a huge responsibility to maintain the integrity of the site,” Buchanan said. “I’m intimidated by what Charlotte’s leaving me, but excitedly so.”
Buchanan’s excitement for the position was also a major reason she was chosen to fill the spot, according to Klamer.
“You could not do this job with all the time and effort it takes if you don’t have the passion,” Klamer said. “You don’t want to turn over your efforts to someone who’s not going to take it and run with it. Rachel’s going to run with it.”
Some of Buchanan’s big ideas include building a separate museum to house the church’s artifacts (an idea previously floated by board members), bettering their digital outreach, marketing the church a “historic wedding destination” for couples who want to step backward in time, and even hosting classic car shows.
“The church was here in the 1960s too. Why not? There’s a lot of places to grow,” she said. “I don’t ever want to leave the history behind, but I want to bring St. Luke’s into the future.”
Murphy can be reached by phone at 757-247-4760.
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