How a Seaside church is working to keep parishioners safe.

Pam Marino here, thinking about how checking into Greater Victory Temple in Seaside reminded me of checking into my dentist during the pandemic.

As I wandered into the building looking for Pastor Ronald Britt on July 2, I was stopped by a woman who told me to go back and sign in. I had cluelessly walked by the Covid-19 check-in station by the door, which included the sign-in sheets for contract tracing purposes and a temperature check gadget affixed to the wall. I dutifully filled out the sheet and stood for my temperature check under her watchful eye.

The woman turned out to be Britt’s wife and the church’s first lady, Angelia Britt. She’s a retired registered nurse and former director of nursing services at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad. Her “retirement” consists of a full-time job coordinating various programs at activities at the church, including the volunteer nursing unit.

When the pandemic came to Monterey County in March last year, Angelia sprung into action with her husband and volunteers, setting up rigorous rules and sanitation measures.

“Our main goal here at the church is to make sure everyone is safe. We have an older population,” she says. Everyone must wear a mask. The church purchased an air purification system and sanitizing mist equipment.

When Pastor Britt, Angelia and I sat down for an interview about the faith community’s pandemic efforts, Angelia wasn’t sure we should remove our masks at first. The Delta variant was gaining a foothold and she was worried about it, but she agreed when I assured her I was fully vaccinated.

“If it was up to me it would be closed,” Angelia says of the church, laughing. Her husband smiled and leaned in, joking with both of us, “Yes, put that in, if it was up to my wife, the first lady of the church, I wouldn’t be coming up here having church. But I had to overrule some things.” At the beginning of the pandemic services were held virtually with essential staff only inside the sanctuary. Today, a limited number of parishioners are allowed on Sunday mornings.

Pastor Ronald Britt and his wife, First Lady Angelia Britt. Photographed by Daniel Dreifuss.

There’s a reason the couple are concerned about Covid. Their denomination, the Church of God in Christ, has been hard hit by the virus losing many leaders along the way, Pastor Britt says. The large Pentecostal denomination based in Memphis, Tennessee, is predominantly African American, according to its website. During the pandemic, Black Americans have been three times more likely to be hospitalized than whites and two times more likely to die from Covid-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

So the Greater Victory Temple has been active—early on they purchased 15,000 masks early on to distribute to the community and they’ve hosted testing and vaccination clinics. The church at 1620 Broadway Ave. is currently home to the state-sponsored testing site. (See the county’s testing web page for hours.)

With the Delta variant in play, the Britts are taking no chances. They say the church will continue to work to keep people both in the congregation and in the community at large safe. 

Even beyond the pandemic, some safety measures they started in the church will remain, Pastor Britt says, including the plexiglass shields installed in front of the pulpit and choir areas to block aerosolized particles from speakers and singers from traveling directly toward the congregation to help prevent colds, the flu and other infectious diseases. “That’s going to remain until Jesus comes,” he says. “This pandemic taught us a lot.”