Hundreds of community members showed up in force Sunday to share a meal and raise funds to help rebuild a Whittier church that was destroyed in a fire last Halloween.

The event was hosted at St. Paul High School in Santa Fe Springs and catered for free by the California Grill restaurant.

While the structure that housed the Good Shepherd Bible Church, 6712 Washington Ave., was destroyed in the Oct. 31, blaze, the church itself, the congregation, is as strong as ever, Rev. Samuel Alba told KTLA.

“I think people thought it was going to slow us down, but it didn’t,” he said. “They thought it would silence us, but it only made us louder. They though the fire would weaken us, possibly. It only made us stronger.”

The funds raised will go to the construction of a new church building, though the location has yet to be determined.