St. Patrick Catholic Church

December 4, 2021

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
      In March of 2020 we held presentations for our parish community in order to outline our proposed Church Renovation Project. We received an overwhelming, positive response and everyone seemed genuinely excited about the plans. It seemed that the majority of parishioners felt like our church was definitely ready for a facelift after serving our community for over 40 years. But then there was Covid, which literally shut us down just a day after making presentations. We spent the rest of 2020 and much of 2021 following guidelines and trying to serve our parish community during the pandemic as best we could.
      Just recently ministries began meeting again and trying to get back to some sense of normalcy and that includes our Building Committee. The Committee is ready to move forward on our Church Renovation Project. But before we do, we would like a little more input from each of you, our parishioners.
      As explained in our presentations, the total project consist of cleaning the rafters, replacing and or re-upholstering pews, removing carpet, improving lighting, moving the tabernacle to the sanctuary and making the chapel a dedicated Adoration chapel, Stations of the Cross, and a new baptismal font. In addition to improving all of these areas inside of the church we also proposed a new entrance to the church and a bell tower. This new entrance would be located where our baptismal font is located now. The estimated total project cost is $3 million. If we were to eliminate the new entrance and only make the improvements inside of the church the estimated cost is $2 million.
St. Patrick Parish is a generous and giving community. And because of your generosity over the years we have a substantial savings in our parish Building Fund. I’ve consulted with our parish Finance Board and they believe it is important to keep some of our savings for a “rainy day”.  And I agree with them. The Board feels comfortable spending $2 million dollars from our savings. With that said, we would need to raise an additional $1 million if we go through with the complete project.
      Our finances have definitely been affected with the recent pandemic and low Mass attendance. We understand that many of you have been affected as well. We thank you for your generosity and continued support of the parish. If you are unable to contribute at this time, know that we understand and pray that your circumstances improve soon. If there is anything we can do for you please do not hesitate to call the parish office.
Attached here is a brief survey. I hope that you will take just a few minutes to complete it. This information will help us tremendously in making a decision on how we move forward with our Church Renovation Project. Thank you for your consideration and participation in this survey.
May God continue to bless you and all those you hold dear during this holy season of Advent.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
 
Fr. Michael Miceli
Pastor

Click here to fill out the Church Renovation Project Survey