Seventh Sunday of Easter, June 1, 2025
By now, our parishioners and regular visitors know about our capital project and the capital campaign to raise the necessary money. Saint John’s is a beautiful old church and people who enter our church invariably comment on its beauty. We have many weddings here because people want to marry in such a beautiful place. But old churches always need lots of repairs and repairs cost money. Beautiful old churches are worth the expense and trouble that it takes to maintain them.
Our urgent needs are that our electrical system is from the 1960s and could fail at any time; the electrical transformer supplies power to the church and friary and if it fails, the church and friary would not have electricity. Also our upper church air conditioning is past its expected life span. And our mechanical, water, electrical and heating systems are all under a patio deck which is crumbling and needs replacement in parts and repairs everywhere.
We have three big problems to fix!
Our initial estimates were that these repairs would cost as much as $1.2 Million, but as we get more precise information, the upper price is now estimated to be as high as $1.4 Million. Nothing changed, except that we are getting better information. I still hope and believe that it will cost less than $1.4 Million. We need to start our work as soon as we can. Costs will only go higher.
We have raised nearly $1 Million. $400,000 of the total is from one donor, a parishioner of Holy Redeemer. $125,000 is from another donor who is not a Saint John’s parishioner, but who loves and believes in Saint John’s. Another $100,000 is from a bequest from the estate of Rose Andrea Kozlow. We took $50,000 from our own Historic Preservation Fund as seed money. That means the total of our large gifts is $675,000.
Of the $221,954 smaller gifts collected so far, about $90,000 comes from Holy Redeemer parishioners. Thus, $490,000 of the total money received was given by Holy Redeemer church members, mostly because of their relationship with me.
We received $31,000 in pledges, but some of the pledges have been paid and are now counted among the received donations.
We are still short as much as $400,000. Where will we get the rest of the money? I expect another $100,000 from the Rose Andrea Kozlow estate.
We have made several grant proposals (grant proposals are a lot of work with no guarantee of success). And we continue our capital campaign appeals. We are reaching out to those who had weddings at Saint John’s in the past years and people who used to be members of Jack’s Yacs, our young adult ministry. I still plan to speak to and visit a few generous and successful Catholic people whom I know. And we are still asking our parishioners and friends who have not given to make a donation.
If all else fails, we can use some money from our Historical Preservation Fund. I very much want to keep that money for future needs, but it is our lifeline if donations don’t cover the cost of this project.
We are going to save Saint John’s! Please be part of it. Don’t stand at the sidelines hoping that others will do it. Please do your part, no matter how large or small your means.
Breakfast at Saint John’s, June 1 is postponed due to unforeseen circumstances. There will be no event on June 1.
