As so many of you remarked, the St. Elias Centre was a very nice venue for a parish dinner celebrating the 150th anniversary of our beautiful church, our spiritual home since 2012.
As nice as this venue was, in the future we hope to be able to host this type of celebration on Old St. Patrick Street in our own parish hall.
This past July our parish launched a capital campaign to raise $900,000 over three years, beginning this year, toward the building of our hall. Without including the proceeds from the dinner, we have received about $165,000 in pledges from about 45 donors. This is a good start, but we need to reach $900,000 in pledges by the end of December. Although we don’t require all the money by that time, we do need your pledges now. The reason for the December deadline is that early in 2024 we can meet with the archdiocese for approval of a mortgage. Then we would be able to finalize our hall design and begin the construction process.
We presently have about 500 donors to our parish. We know that regular donations vary widely according to the means of each individual. But, when averaged out, everything counts, and each donation makes a difference. To put the campaign in perspective, if our 500 donors pledged, on average, an additional $50 per month above and beyond their normal contributions, realizing that some will give more and some less, we would attain our goal of $900,000 to qualify for the mortgage. But we will never really know until we see your pledges of support.
If you have not done so already, we would ask that you consider making a pledge using the pledge form below. Please determine how much you can give above and beyond your normal contributions.
Parish Hall–capital campaign–Pledge Form (PDF)
Remember that your donations are eligible for a significant tax credit.
Our parish has a great future and together we can meet our campaign goal. May God reward you for your generosity!
Fr. Erik Deprey, FSSP
November 26, 2023