This October marked the launch of Eureka Street Production’s documentary podcast, When We All Get to Heaven. The ten-episode series is the culmination of a fourteen-year archival and oral history project focusing on the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco (MCCSF) during the height of the AIDS epidemic. The project is fiscally sponsored by FJC.
In 2011, historian and co-founder Lynne Gerber was informed by a long-time member of MCCSF that he had been safekeeping over 1,200 cassette tapes containing audio recordings of the Church’s services under a floorboard in their sound room. MCCSF was one of the first gay-positive churches in the US, known for both its location in the Castro and its acceptance of members across the theological spectrum. Lynne began listening to the tapes and uncovered the story of a community that came together to face personal, social and political trials throughout the AIDS epidemic, including the deaths of hundreds of the church’s members.
“We’re so grateful to FJC for making the business end so simple. Because the rest of it was more complex than any of us imagined!”
Lynne Gerber, co-founder of Eureka Street Productions
The tapes were recorded by members of the MCCSF from 1987-2003 to create a way for members of the church to listen and sing along to the services once they became too affected by HIV-related illness to attend. Recognizing their historical value, Lynne brought in other researchers, like co-founders Siri Colom and Arianna Nedelman to digitize 325 of the cassettes, and Eureka Street Productions was born.
Eureka Street Productions joined FJC’s Fiscal Sponsorship Program in 2018 to formalize their research and begin fundraising for the production of a documentary podcast. Following several years and iterations of the oral history project, Eureka Street was awarded multiple grants to produce When We All Get to Heaven.
Under FJC’s 501(c)(3) umbrella, Eureka Street was able to be funded by charitable dollars and allowed them to hire a skilled production team. Their ability to raise tax-deductible contributions proved especially beneficial after a series of public funding cuts last spring, and the team was able to move quickly to secure support from a private foundation to supplement the hole in their production budget.
The tapes “…uncovered the story of a community that came together to face personal, social and political trials throughout the AIDS epidemic, including the deaths of hundreds of the church’s members.”
“We still can’t believe When We All Get to Heaven is being released into the world!” said Lynne Gerber, co-founder of Eureka Street Productions. “FJC has been with us every step as we’ve gone from three partners with a weird obsession with an archive to a 10-person production team and a national distribution partner in Slate. We’re so grateful to FJC for making the business end so simple. Because the rest of it was more complex than any of us imagined!”
The podcast partnered with Slate’s Outward podcast to air the weekly episodes. The episodes feature sounds of the sermons, singing from the choir, and the voices of MCCSF congregants reflecting on that period at the church. Episodes can be found on their website, here.
Special thanks to Sophia Trombold, Program Administrator for FJC’s Fiscal Sponsorship Program, for writing this story.
