The Milan News-Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
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Jehovah's Witnesses build new hall
About 500 volunteers turn out over the weekend to build a new facility
By Lisa Allmendinger, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: October 9, 2008
Ken Berardi was among about 500 volunteers who recently spent the weekend constructing a new Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall on Carpenter Road in Milan.
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In three days, it was expected that the building would be rough framed, partially bricked and the roof completed.
"Everyone here is a volunteer," said Neal Sizemore, an overseer of the project, which is expected to be completed by mid-November.
The finished product will be a brick, 4,800-square-foot building on a 5-acre site that was donated by a congregation member, he said.
Included in the new hall will be an office, two classrooms, a bathroom with a "mother's room" for those with babies, as well as the main hall.
It will seat 220 people, Berardi said, and have handicapped accessibility.
Not only is the labor locally generated, but also the materials, and heating and cooling system, Sizemore said.
"More than anything else, we need room for growth," Berardi said.
"We've outgrown our building," he said of the current site on Lewis Street, which has 158 congregation members.
"It will be sentimental leaving the current building, but exciting to move to some place new," he said.
The Milan congregation was formed in 1942, according to a press release from the Jehovah's Witnesses.
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