PITTSFIELD, Maine — When the Church of the Nazarene started a collection in appreciation of a roofing company that installed a new roof on the church for free, it expected to collect a few hundred dollars at best.

Dozens of church members and residents from throughout the Pittsfield area responded in force and in just a few weeks donated almost $1,100. The only thing more amazing than the sum, according to Esther Temple of Palmyra, the church’s treasurer, is that Top Notch Roofing gave at least $740 of it away.

Top Notch, based in Clinton, resurfaced the church’s roof for free last month after learning that shingles and other materials had sat around for a year waiting for the church to be able to afford the job. Business owners, Roger Reynolds Jr. and Richard Park Jr., didn’t ask for payment but the church congregation took it upon themselves to collect a gratuity.

Temple said on Reynolds’ and Park’s request, she recently sent a check for $540 to the Wiscasset Church of the Nazarene’s food pantry. Another $200 has come in since then, which Top Notch Roofing requested be given to the Amanda and Darrin Smith family of Canaan. The Smith family’s home burned Oct. 12, destroying everything they owned.

Temple said she didn’t know what happened to the rest of the $1,100, but hoped the roofers kept it to cover some of their expenses.

Reynolds told the Bangor Daily News that he distributed about $300 of the money to his crew — which equaled about $60 or $70 each for a week’s worth of work — and donated the rest.

“I just wanted to see the money go to people who really need it,” he said.

Some people aren’t used to that kind of generosity.

“You don’t see people act like this very often,” said Armand Cloutier, a member of the congregation who led the collection. “Some people give back what the Lord has given them. It’s a remarkable story.”

Cloutier said the roofers are still due to return to finish the roof at the church parsonage after a new chimney there is complete, but that some of the roofers have already been back.

“They come to the church now,” said Cloutier. “They were there last week.”

ccousins@bangordailynews.net

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