Thank You for Cheerful Giving From the Heart
God’s love certainly unites us! It is evident in the parish response to our recent annual stewardship outreach. THANK YOU! I am humbled and grateful for your commitment to St. Benedict Catholic Church, especially during these challenging times. Through your commitment, our parish remains vibrant, engaged and Christ-centered in the Eucharist and in serving one another. God’s work is never done! Your prayerful response both materially and spiritually is setting the groundwork for a path forward as we plan for the future of our parish and continuation of critical ministries and outreach programs. St. Benedict Catholic Church continues to grow as a strong, faith-led stewardship community because of parishioners like you. Thank you for your generosity, prayers, and commitment to St. Benedict Catholic Church!
We have now come to the sixth week and the end of the Cheerful Giving program. Our recent report shows tha148 of our parishioners participated in the program, giving us a response rate of 21% with 7 additional electronic participants. This gives us a projected additional annual offertory commitments of $69,029 (contributions not yet realized). We also have a one-time donation of $2,510. I look forward to your continuous support through this program, especially those who signed up for recurring giving.
Deck The Hall, Build the Walls
This weekend, we are rolling out a new initiative, “Deck The Hall, Build the Walls” trees. This is a fundraising initiative that will be used to support our new Church construction. We have 3 Trees up through the end of the Christmas season unless we run out of ornaments. One inside the MPR by the chapel door, and 2 outside on the MPR porch between the 2 main doors. We have St. Benedict ornaments with tags on them. The tags have different monetary amounts. We are inviting everyone to take an ornament or more and donate the amount on the ornament they pick. We have 600 ornaments mostly $20 and $50, but also $75 and $100 and a handful of $500 and $1,000.
We are recycling self-addressed envelopes that were extras from the Cheerful Giving Program. They will have labels on them with instructions. Donations can be placed in these envelopes. We encourage school families to support the building of the church by participating in this initiative.
Ways to turn in donations are:
Drop in the boxes provided
Place in offertory basket
Drop off at office Mail
Bring to the Parish Office
Construction Update From the Building Committee
We hope that everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving holiday and were able to spend time with loved ones. As you will notice, by this week's photos, the construction team has been busy since our last update.
The tower is now at 61 feet. The upper tower arches are beginning to form. The southside arches are complete, along with the eastside arches. Significant work has been done on the westside of the building. The mason is scheduled to be completed in 3 weeks.
A leak was discovered in the new domestic water system. It is being tracked down and will be repaired.
Issue with the mechanical contractor's recent departure is causing delays.The A/C curbing and the conference room demo are on hold. We reviewed the proposal from the third mechanical sub, Grazak.The difference between Grazak and the original sub is $60,000, subject to equipment availability. The additional costs will be pulled from the Contingency fund of Double AA. Double AA will pursue legal action against the original sub for breach of contract. A plan is in development on how to avoid impacting our target of Q3 2023.
This week's photos:
The block work on the westside for the Sanctuary and the 2 Sacristries has made significant progress.
The southside and northside block work are in final cleanup.
The eastside photo shows the completed arches and the height of the bell tower.