St. Peter’s Episcopal Church celebrated this year’s Ash Wednesday by hitting the road.

From opening their doors to the LGBT community to providing mental healthcare to the South Coast, St. Peter’s has been making huge strides in modernizing worship. Instead of staying within the church’s walls, Rev. Scott Ciosek and several members of the congregation went out into town to give ashes to people who could not be at church.

In its third year, Ashes to Go was done in collaboration with St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in New Bedford. Throughout the day, members of the congregations were available outside of St. Martin’s and Big Value on Dartmouth Street to provide people with ashes.

Ash Wednesday marks the first day of Lent, a period of 46 days with 40 fasting days that lead up to Easter. The name Ash Wednesday comes from the practice of burning the palm leaves of the previous year’s Palm Sunday and anointing people with the ashes.

Ciosek was very happy with the turnout. Within 40 minutes of arriving at Big Value, he and St. Peter’s senior warden Betty Furness provided ashes to over 40 people, and two puppies. In past years, turnout for the event has been so great that traffic jams have been caused by people pulling over to get ashes, Ciosek said.

“So many people are grateful,” Ciosek said. “They said ‘This is what churches need to be doing - getting out into the world.’

While they mostly had shoppers stop by on their way in, some people pulled right up in their cars or, on one occasion, a school bus.

St. Peter’s provided ashes to Protestants, Roman Catholics and people who had never been to a church before. There was even a dog, Domino, who was anointed during the event.

“Maybe this will spark something about their spiritual journey. That’s all we can hope for, to let people know that Jesus loves them,” Ciosek said.

“The most amazing part of this day is people are just saying ‘We haven’t been to church in 25 years and this is sparking something for us,’” he added.

Dave Tatelbaum, owner of Big Value and “unofficial” member of the congregation, has been an invaluable part of St. Peter’s regrowth, said Furness.

“Wonderful people,” Tatelbaum said of the church, “They’ve got great stuff going on.”

St. Peter’s was also accepting donations to reconstruct the outdated community playground. The biggest contributor was Spencer Freelove, 7, who donated the contents of his piggybank into the fund.

“That’s how he wanted to start the playground,” said Susan Pomeroy, Freelove’s mother. “He said the playground was broken and he wanted a new one.”