Parishioners have saved a 150-year-old parish in Rockland County.

The New York Archdiocese recently announced mergers of a number of Hudson Valley parishes and some church closings.

Parishioners at St. John the Baptist in Piermont thought their parish's days were numbered, but mounted an aggressive petition campaign to keep it alive. "We all got together. We raised money and we erected this beautiful church, and so to have that feeling that it's going to be taken away again; we just thought, it can't happen," says Patty McKillor.

McKillor says the effort was seen as the biggest challenge since the original church burned down in the early 1960s.