The Rev. John Stahl-Wert was the first person in 10 years to walk through the old Union Baptist Church in 2000.

"There were 100 dead pigeons on the floor of the Grand Hall, and dead pigeons in every room," he said. "It took my breath away."

The gaping roof wasn't the worst of it. Most of the church's stained glass windows were broken, and the cost of repair was estimated at upward of a million dollars. The building on the corner of Negley and Stanton avenues in the East End was a money pit.

And yet a group of six twenty-somethings convinced the Rev. Stahl-Wert that the church was worth an investment by the Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation, which he heads.

Eight years after the foundation bought the building for $125,000, the nonprofit Union Project has grown into one of the city's most vibrant community and cultural centers.

The project was the brainchild of 12 friends in their 20s, all passionate about social justice, who sought to draw black and white people of all incomes to talk, make music and art, drink coffee and bring their children to play together. In the dilapidated, vacant church on the corner, they saw the potential to create that place.

Today, the building buzzes with activity, housing a ceramics studio that earned $30,000 in sales last year and a barista training program for young people aging out of foster care. As a social enterprise incubator, it's full with five tenants that are all involved in the operation of the project.

One -- the Pittsburgh Urban Learning Service Experience, which the Rev. Stahl-Wert founded -- brings rural youth to Pittsburgh for a year of service work. Another tenant, the Open Door church, holds services there, runs the garden and supplies fresh produce to the in-house cafe.

Cultural events in the Great Hall include readings, concerts, talent shows and community discussions. The project holds an annual apple festival, a rib festival, a flea market, a crafts fair and a Martin Luther King Jr. Day gathering that has had to turn people away.

In 2006, it opened the cafe where neighborhood resident Terese Jungle sips coffee while her 5-year-old daughter colors.

The Union Project's location sealed her decision to live nearby when she moved back to Pittsburgh three years ago after spending 20 years living in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, she said.

"I was used to an urban atmosphere, and looking in the East End, I found there was a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration," she said. "That's how I discovered the Union Project. When I went, I figured I was going to a church, but this was huge. Standing room only. There was music and food and I was energized.

"I was frequently looking for things for my 5-year-old to do nearby," said Ms. Jungle, adding that crafts for children, visits from Santa Claus, and the coloring books and toys in the cafe kept bringing her back to the Union Project.

"She plays while I have my coffee. It is a nice escape."

From frequent patron, Ms. Jungle has become a benefactor. She brings her graphic design students from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh to the Union Project to do free work for which they get credit.

"We call it the neighborhood's front porch," said the Rev. Stahl-Wert, even though three adjacent neighborhoods claim the project as theirs -- East Liberty, Highland Park and Stanton Heights. But people from even more neighborhoods use it.

Executive Director Maria Pranzo said the King Day event attracts people from five counties.

With tenants, classes, the cafe and regular events, she said, "we are keeping life in the building all the time. It's one thing the community [residents] said they wanted. They wanted the building to feel alive.

"We have specific outcomes for everything we do: attendance outcomes, audience diversity outcomes. We do surveys and look at racial and economic diversity," she said. "We have a database that tracks" the rate of visitors' return.

The project has also created an army of volunteers. It pulled in 1,600 people at the outset to make repairs. It has mended most of the shattered windows by holding classes on how to fix stained glass. About 150 people paid for the training and restored the windows in the process.

"It was a million-dollar problem that they turned into a fundraiser," said Jason Vrabel, the former design coordinator for the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh.

The project's founding members were involved with a Mennonite program that brought them to Pittsburgh to do service work, said Justin Rothshank, a founding member and head of the ceramics studio.

"The loose idea was to make a place for artists, musicians and worship, a place for general community gatherings," Mr. Rothshank said.

Having a clay studio and performance space was critical because several of the friends were clay artists and musicians, he said. Having a coffee shop also was important to provide an informal gathering space, he said.

Mr. Vrabel remembered hearing the project's early pitch for design funds.

"We had this group of kids sitting in front of us, with no track record, new to Pittsburgh. They seemed earnest but ... well, we debated it and decided to fund it" with a grant of $12,000 -- the Union Project's first.

"It's one of the things we are most happy about," Mr. Vrabel said. "They have achieved everything on their own since."

Toye Starver, who works for a nonprofit agency that helps people with AIDS, knew some of the project's founders and became an early member of its board of directors. The project's success owes much to its founders' ideas that, at the time, seemed full of youthful excess, she said.

"Everyone they were talking to was older and telling them not to try to go too fast. Thank goodness they didn't listen to us," she said.

"They said, 'Don't you want to join us to make something great?' and their attitude became our attitude, everyone from financial people to carpenters."

By the fall of 2005, the first phase of building renovations was finished, at a cost of $1.6 million. The project raised that money from individual donors, foundations and corporations, including money and construction help provided by the Massaro Corp. The next summer, it added the cafe.

Since then, the project's initial two-person staff has grown to 10 full-time and five part-time people. Some of the founders have moved on to other work, but Mr. Rothshank said the project has "remained true" to its social-justice mission.

"I guess eight years isn't really such a long time," Mr. Rothshank said. "But when you're in your 20s, it seems like it."

Much remains to be done. Two-thirds of the windows in the Great Hall still need repair, and the hall's renovation is also pending.

"We will have to hold our third capital campaign to do those things. In eight years, that's pretty heady," Mr. Rothshank said.

With an annual budget of about $600,000, the project still relies on volunteer labor but has a contractor for larger projects. It rents the Great Hall for weddings and other events. It depends on volunteer landscapers and painters from the United Way Day of Caring and universities.

"We have spent nothing on things we should have spent thousands on," said Ms. Pranzo. "This community is incredibly giving. All you have to do is ask."

The Union Project also refers participants to other community resources, such as the Healthy Black Families program at the Kingsley Center.

Food and other offerings are usually covered by corporate sponsors.

The Union Project collected about $60,000 in individual donations last year, although donations are down this year, said Ms. Pranzo, who with her boyfriend moved here from Brooklyn in 2007 "to live better on the money we had."

"We found this church," she said. "We went to the cafe for lunch and struck up a conversation with the barista."

During that chat, she learned the project needed a person to raise funds. She got that job, and later became the project's executive director. She said it was "serendipitous, like so many things that happen here."

"When I saw the energy and passion and purpose behind [the project], I knew it had to be supported," the Rev. Stahl-Wert said. "Our foundation has been involved in transformational visions for 30 years.

"There is nothing so powerful as a human being with a passion and vision and the talent to fulfill it."