Wonderful church family, very welcoming and freindly.
I was very saddened and surprised to read the detailed negative review from Sara, and I can only say that my dealings with the church and with Virginia have always been positive, absolutely non-judgmental. I can't imagine what could have gone so horribly wrong with Sara's experience, but I would encourage her and others to give St Wilfred's another chance!
2 weeks prior to the event we get a phone call from Sue. She tells us she is the person in charge of coordinating now and she asked for us to meet up to pay the actual price to rent the hall of $350. We arranged for a Friday. My husband went alone. She didn't know my husband or anything about him and the first thing she tells him when she saw him was "oh good, you speak English" what a greeting... she gave him a receipt and the pass code for the door and left.
I needed a hall to rent to host my baby shower, didn't need anything too big or fancy and since it was planned to be something very low key when we came across the St. Wilfred Episcopal Church rental hall, we thought it was perfect. Not too big, just the perfect size to host the amount of people we had invited. We had arranged to meet with Linda (the person in charge at the time) and pay the deposit fee of $150 to hold the date. Linda could not make it for the date we arranged, so instead we would meet up with a lady named Virginia. My husband and I showed up at the church office and our experience with her was not pleasant whatsoever. We were greeted, we sat down all together, she starts to print out paperwork (contract, agreements, etc) and then she explains them to us, she is finished explaining and we have spoken fluent and perfect English to her she gives us a copy of the contract in Spanish and says "in case you need it to understand it better". My husband and i felt a little offended because we had never told her that we spoke Spanish nor she ever heard us struggle to understand or say anything in english. We let it be. Then, she needed to make copies of my ID so she asked, "I just need to make copies of your ID or whatever it is YOU PEOPLE have". Wow, just ask for an ID, no need for any of these racial innuendos. I gave her my ID and she made copies. After this, she came back with the copies of the ID and copies of the signed contract and agreements and we began to discuss different rules that she wanted me to be aware of. Example: don't put trash in the recycling bin, and don't touch the bulletin boards on the wall, etc. I told her that I was happy to find them because we had been looking at other places and the charge was outrageous and some places charge hourly fees. To this she explained that the only time they charge extra per hour is if the place is held past midnight and then she said "because it seems that it is something that they do in some countries in South America. They celebrate parties past midnight" I looked at her in the eyes and told her "here are the $150, where do I sign for a receipt" signed and walked out of the place. Needless to say my husband was furious. Let me tell you, we never told this lady where we were from, and since the ethnical and cultural remarks were made from the beginning we were just there to give a deposit and leave so this lady knew NOTHING about us. My husband wanted to go back and get our money because from that moment he didn't want anything else to do with them. I told him "is just one person out of the bunch"
The night prior to the event we showed up to arrange the tables and see a picture of Virginia on the wall, we find out she is THE REVEREND of this church. We had the event the day after and called sue after we were out, asked her how the deposit was going to be returned she said 3 days later she would call, she didnt. I called on the 4th day and she told me the money had been sent on a check via mail. Although the contract did not say anything about a check I let it be and waited the week after I called and told her the check never arrived and cought these people in so many lies about returning our money so we showed up to the church to pick up our money and have them put it in our hands like we did with them. They were too coward and disrespectful to face us that they had to tape the check to the wall in an envelope with my last name on it. Such cowards. DO NOT rent from this place. They make racial remarks like it's ok, they have no integrity and no organization starting from their reverend, Virginia
St Wilfred Episcopal Church is a US Church based in Sarasota, Florida. St Wilfred Episcopal Church is located at 3773 Wilkinson Rd, Sarasota, FL 34233, USA.
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