CORNELIA—Tradesmen work inside the former red brick gym, converting the large space into a sanctuary. Metal framing crisscrosses the exposed ceiling. The terraced landings circle around where the altar will stand and believers will be immersed in the baptismal pool. Parts of wooden pews wait to be assembled. Nearby, scores of youngsters fill what used to be classrooms for religious education.   

What started as a tutoring project is now a community anchor. This shuttered school building has become a hub for an immigrant community in the northeast corner of the Archdiocese of Atlanta.   

Transformation reaches a milestone

The community will dedicate a new chapel in late March, more than doubling its worship space. Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer, OFM Conv., will celebrate the dedication. 

“When they come and enter into St. Dominic, that is where they feel loved by God,” said Father Jose R. DeLeon, St. Dominic’s pastor. “This is a beautiful place where they can feel love.”  

The transformation took sweaty work done with many hands. The former county school, erected in the 1940s, once sat empty; its windows broken by troublemakers.   

Jennifer Hinson is a retired teacher. She remembered the lively hallways of sixth graders when she taught here. Former teachers and neighbors who stop by are happy to see the building serving a purpose again, she said.   

She worships here, as well as at nearby St. Mark Church. Hinson said the presence of the Holy Spirit transcends her limited Spanish and cultural differences to be able to serve.  

She recalled Mass at St. Dominic in the early days when the gym was basically an open shell. Despite summer’s heat and winter’s cold, hundreds attended, and it felt like home, she said.    

“It’s just very uplifting, I would say accepting and it makes you want to embrace everything. It just gives you that loving feeling,” she said, sitting in one of the renovated office spaces.  

Father DeLeon, who arrived from Washington, D.C. in 2024, recently was installed as pastor. The New Jersey native called the rural community a “very homey kind of place”   

William Sebastian Pascual smiles during his second-year communion preparation class. Students meet on Wednesdays to attend religious education classes at the St. Dominic Mission community center and school in Cornelia. Photo by Julianna Leopold

Father DeLeon ministers to two Habersham County communities about 15 minutes apart. Catholics worship at St. Mark Church in Clarkesville and the newer St. Dominic Mission in Cornelia, some 80 miles northeast of Atlanta.  

St. Mark Church, founded in 1964, serves about 800 families, a mix of retired people and young Hispanic families.   

The new mission community named St. Dominic is an outreach of the parish. The mission in Cornelia is smaller, poorer and primarily Hispanic, with many people originally from Guatemala drawn to job opportunities in construction and the poultry industry.  

For every 100 people in Cornelia, about 29 are Latino, according to government statistics. In the whole county, about 15% of the community is Hispanic.   

As Hispanic families moved in, the former pastor Father José Hernandez Ayala and dedicated church members saw the need to go out and evangelize and have a presence in this smaller community.  

In 2016, the archdiocese bought the closed school in the heart of a neighborhood. It turned the building into an education hub, offering tutoring for struggling students in the community. Later, it became the center of religious education, Mass and community events.   

On a recent Wednesday evening, the building buzzed with a few hundred young people attending religious education classes.  

Father DeLeon believes the mission is more than a building project.   

“It’s God at work, in the people” who see the chapel as their own, said Father DeLeon. “It’s something we can take pride in.”  

Helping to build the church  

One of the early plans was knocking down walls in the former library to become a chapel, as well as updating classrooms. The 200 chapel seats are quickly filled for the Saturday evening Mass, as chairs flow down the hallway.   

For Virginia Pascual, 29, it’s a matter of pride to watch two of her children take part in Mass, one in the choir and the other serving at the altar.   

Pascual, who immigrated from Guatemala and now works in a local factory, wants her children to learn that the Church is not something handed to them but it’s something they help to build, she said, speaking in Spanish.  

Pascual teaches them how their contributions matter, whether helping to refurbish donated wooden pews or selling pupusas, tacos and tamales after Mass.    

A few years ago, working as a babysitter, despite earning little, Pascual said she gave her entire $1,000 savings when the parish sold commemorative bricks for a future plaza.   

Seeing the church completed is a dream, said Pascual.  

Victor and Teresa Escamilla live just blocks away.  They have been part of the project since the tutoring was offered in a mobile home.    

Victor, a 55-year-old truck driver, said the growing community finding each other at the mission for him is a sign of “the riches of heaven.”   

More and more people are showing up and contributing to this work, he said.  

Mary is a welcoming sight for students attending faith formation classes at St. Dominic in Cornelia, where the community is looking forward to the dedication of its chapel. The mission outreach is situated in a once-closed neighborhood school. Photo by Julianna Leopold

The couple sold raffle tickets for the chance to win a car, but the most important lesson for Teresa, who spends many hours a week here, is how it has gotten her to talk to neighbors, whether at the park or around town, sharing about the work of the community.   

“More than to see the building change, I see many hearts will change. There’s a new kind of communion among the brothers.”  

Community at the heart of the design

The community’s focus is now on the large gym, with plans for the new, larger sanctuary with sunlight streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows and enough seats for the growing congregation.   

Jeff Roche, a longtime member of St. Mark Church, serves as a volunteer project manager for its construction, ordering supplies and directing volunteers.   

For him, the project is an example of the “universality of the church” as people from Texas and Italy have bought into the vision and contributed labor and materials. A Texas firm poured the concrete for the sanctuary. Parishes in New York City and Washington, D.C. contributed the pews.   

The new sanctuary more than doubles the 200-seat chapel, with room for 480 worshippers, plus an overflow area to put 250 more.   

The pastor said the completed project is estimated to cost $3 million. They have raised about half that amount.  

Many of the working-class worshippers do not have excess money to give to the collection plate, but they have expertise with their hands, Father DeLeon said. They donate time and skills to make the chapel beautiful.     

“Beauty attracts,” he said. “Beauty is where we feel love.”