Saving the heritage of peoples from destruction, or how solidarity revives churches

The residents of Fuenteodra, Burgos, resisted seeing how their church ended up collapsed and got down to work starting in a crowdfunding campaign is underway that in 2020 managed to save the building.

Now, the bells ring again to warn that they are campaigning again. Having shored up its foundations, now they need to repair their interior and they know that it is not easy.

“How can people donate money? to a place where he has not been, nor knows, nor will he ever be?” asks Javier Maisterra, president of the cultural association ‘Manapites’.

They were told that there was nothing to do, but they already got it the first time and they don’t give up. “We never imagined that it could get as far as this has,” says José Luis Corralejo, municipal mayor of Fuenteodra.

Now, they need to contribute about 38,000 euros, of the 128,000 that make up the subsidy that they have been granted. “What we want is not for them to do everything for us, but for them to finance us where we cannot go. We want to have that social base so that the project, after the works are finished, is a living project,” adds Maisterra.

They are not the only ones. In Vadocondes, also in Burgos, they still remember the good taste in their mouths that the first campaign left them. “Donations came from Alaska, from the United States, from the United Kingdom…”, recalls Mariano Giménez, a resident of the municipality.

In total, 47,000 euros gave luster to the altarpiece of the High Altar and now they have to bring the its historic 1826 organ. “The people here also like culture like those in the Salamanca district of Madrid,” defends Jean-Pierre Gallard, the town’s priest.

María rehearses the keyboard in case in a few years she can play the already restored organ because at this time, crowdfunding campaigns do they work.

“The towns in summer grow and it is the moment to take advantage”, argues Giménez and he is right, Vadocondes it goes from 360 inhabitants to 1,000 during the holidays. The towns are filled and social awareness increases. “Whether they come to mass or not, it doesn’t matter; what matters is that this is heritage,” adds the priest. A heritage that already hears the echoes of its nearest future.