Construction/Campaign Update

Dear friends in Christ, By now all registered households of CtR should have received a letter from me updating you on the progress of our construction of the Parish Life Center and our One Faith, One Family Capital Campaign. Please allow me to expand upon that here.

First, the construction: I am happy to report that, thanks be to God, we are on-time and on-budget with the building of the new PLC and we expect to be done with construction by the end of the year, likely during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. It has been a pleasure to work with our contractor, Brookstone, on the construction. Together with HBL Architects they have kept to the task and done a great job of raising the PLC from the ground up. Hard to believe but it was just 12 months ago that we were beginning to move the dirt and prepare the building pad for the foundation. They have worked at great speed with safety and efficiency and the result is a building we can rightly be proud of.

I haven’t yet decided which part of the new PLC is my favorite. Certainly the parish hall is going to be a center-piece for all of us. I can imagine parish-wide celebrations and dinners here for years to come. It’s big and beautiful and will have room for everyone, or with seating for 400+ just about everyone! We’ve already booked at least two wedding receptions and an 50th anniversary celebration for this coming spring, and I’m certain that more will be forth-coming once everyone sees it. The kitchen is going to be hopping, too, and the Knights of Columbus are already preparing for record-setting sales at our Fish Fry during Lent.

The classrooms for the youth and faith formation rooms for our adults are going to be a tremendous blessing for the community. It is hard to believe that we’ve been utilizing just 14 classrooms for these many years. We’ll now have more than 35 rooms at our service in which to teach our more than 2,500 children in Religious Education, and all our adults in this Year of Faith. And then there is the amazing new Youth Suite for our Youth Ministry programs in junior and senior high school. To say it is cool is an understatement. (But really, what do I know about cool? At least the kids who have seen it under construction tell me it is cool!) It will truly be a home where our young people can grow in their faith and live out their Catholic identity.

Secondly, the Capital Campaign: We are finishing up the first year of our three-year One Faith, One Family campaign. Our goal for this campaign is $6 million, and currently about 27 percent of the 5,300 families have total pledges of about $5.84 million. Thank you to all have had made a pledge. We truly appreciate your generosity and support.

Next weekend we are having a “Commitment Weekend” in the parish for those families who have yet to make a pledge. We’d like to go above and beyond our goal, and there are still nearly 4,000 families registered at CtR who have not joined us in this effort. Every gift is of course important to us reaching the goal, be it big or small. In fact I received last week a pledge envelope with a $20 bill stuck inside from 73-year-old parishioner who said it was all she could do at this point. How great is that! It came on the same day as pledge of $5,000 from another family, and I’m here to tell you each was an equal blessing and an equal sacrifice given the lives of each of them.

We are asking those who have yet to make a pledge to please prayerfully consider doing so this week. I’ll speak at mass next weekend about it as well. We ask them to make a two-year pledge to “catch-up,” so to speak, with those who made a pledge last year. That way we’ll all finish with our pledges at one time. You need not pay all at once. I made a pledge last year and am paying it every quarter on my credit card. It makes it convenient for me, but do what works best for you and your family. However, please don’t sit on the sidelines and not participate. It would not be just to let others do your work. We can all make a sacrificial gift to seeing that our faith is spread for generations to come.

Every gift and every pledge is important. Don’t think your contribution would not help — I assure you it will. We are managing our finances tightly on this project but we need everyone to help as they can. The total cost of PLC will be about $11.8 million, and if we meet and exceed our goal on this first phase, it will make it that much easier to service our debt down the road. Let’s all do our part to participate as One Faith, One Family.