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By JOYANNA LOVE/ Managing Editor

Chestnut Creek Heritage Chapel is celebrating the season with its annual Christmas Bazaar fundraiser on Dec. 4.

“People love to just come and sit down and talk, and it is my favorite event of all of the ones we have because it is just a friendship thing,” Board member Ola Taylor said.

Taylor said the event is important to keeping the Chapel going and has gone toward paying for restoration work to the building in the past.

This year’s event will be held from 8 a.m. to noon and will feature a variety of handmade items for sale. Attendees are asked to wear masks.

Taylor said some of the items include wreaths, ornaments, quilts, unique children’s aprons, woodcrafts and rag trees. Refreshments will also be served.

“We have table runners made from antique quilts, and ornaments made from antique quilts,” Taylor said.

New for this year will be a selection of bakery goods for sale from a baker in Helena.

She and a relative had been at the cemetery adjacent to the chapel to clean up around the family’s graves.

“They got in touch with me and they came over and saw the chapel, so they got all inspired to help us out,” Taylor said.

Having relatives buried in the graveyard is what prompted the original Cooper Cousins to organize efforts to preserve it and the chapel.

“When Pam and Denise and their cousin Lynn got together … so they started a Facebook page called Cooper Cousins, and people who were from the area or had gone to church there could just join up,” Taylor said.

Some of those with connections to the area live out of town, but still find ways to support the chapel by sending in items to be sold at the bazaar.

This is the eighth year for the event.

“We actually started it the year before we owned the building, so it has been with us the whole time,” Taylor said.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has led to canceling most of the events held at the chapel, Taylor said there are hopes for a spring event, if new cases stay low.