Our Pastoral Planning Team (PPT) and Buildings and grounds team are hard at work on many items for our parish. I want to bring two major projects to your attention. They are a works in process: Solar Panels and updating and moving the transformer that is located outside the glass entryway to the hall and church.
Since the publication of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment and human ecology: Laudato si: On the care of our Common Home; our Diocese and the Bishops conference have encouraged us as parishes to seek to examine our carbon footprint and all the ways we can implement this encyclical. If you want to know more about these efforts check out these two web sites: https://www.catholicenergies.org/; https://catholicclimatecovenant.org/.
We have a proposal from TeamSolar to rent space from us for solar panels. There would be no investment of funds by our parish, we would receive rent from TeamSolar for use of our space. The proposal in being reviewed by our PPT along with the Diocesan Environmental Team. This rent will be an additional income stream to help support the parish. As things unfold, I will keep you posted.
In our long-range planning we are looking to bring the connector (glass entryway) between the church and the center up to code. We really need to tear it down and start all over as there is not heat nor air in that area. It is often a freezer or a sauna depending on the weather. There are lots of issues that need to be corrected. In order to move forward the first thing we need to do is relocate the green transformer box located in front of the connector to another location. The transformer is close to end of life and it is in our best interest to be proactive and replace the lines and transformer before it fails and costs us double for an emergency repair.
The Operations Team with the Buildings and Grounds Team have been working on obtaining three bids for this project that we hope to present to the Diocesan Building Commission. The cost associated with this project will be about $20,000. I am asking that you consider continuing to contribute to the Endowment Fund so we will have the funds on hand to move forward with this important project in the spring.
How proud I am of the work done by so many who assist in helping us with the fiscal and material aspects of our parish life. A thank you to you all for your financial support of our Catholic Community.