When the Rev. Michael Luke and his First Pentecostal Church congregation purchased four buildings of the former St. Andrew Catholic Church in Sumner last year, he knew there would be plenty of work for his members in renovating the sanctuary and a two-story building mostly destroyed by fire four years ago.

But one clause in the purchase of the St. Andrew property was renovating the burnt building within three years.

Work has been slow on the building.

But Saturday, men, women and child volunteers from a neighboring church came to assist with tools in hand.

Luke said about a week ago, a neighbor and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Sumner, Daniel Conine, approached him about doing some volunteer work.

Conine said his wife, Natalie, works on the Activities Committee, and once a month the LDS wards plans activities for the members. They have done activities from chili cookoffs to barbecues.

“But this month we decided to do a service project,” Conine said. “We looked at several things like clearing the parks, but we wanted to do something that had some significance.”

Conine said he and his family have been watching work being done on the structure for several months and decided to contact Luke about helping renovate the building.

He said when the idea was mentioned, more than 90 people signed up to participate and more than 70 showed up Saturday morning.

“This is a family thing,” Conine said. “As a congregation we want to get together once a month and we want it to be a family project, also.”

Luke said he was impressed with the turnout of volunteers of all ages.

“This is a real blessing to us,” said Luke, who was helping guiding the volunteers in what needed to be torn down.

For several hours on the second floor, the sounds of hammers pounding, people throwing down debris filled the area.

The volunteers, along with church members, gutted the second story of drywall, ceiling material, electrical fixtures and wiring.

Luke said about seven large truck loads of rubble was transported to a local landfill.

Luke said he canceled Sunday night church service to work on the building.

He said, once finished, the building with be used for Sunday school on the second floor and house the church’s school on the first floor.

“The work today really helped us get further ahead of schedule,” said Luke. “They (volunteers) really came here and started working. Our church appreciates them taking time to help us.”

After several long hours of work, Luke’s church provided lunch for the workers.

The building was constructed as a one-story facility in the 1950 and the second story was added 15 years ago. It’s located at the corner of Kincaid and Park avenues.

Reach Dannie Oliveaux at doliveaux@courierherald.com or 360-802-8209.