Maintenance Project - (August 28th-September 20th)
Tomorrow we begin our big project of replacing our pews and carpet in the church.
This will take 4 weeks to complete and require lots of effort and hard work.
Please check our bulletin, website or this insert for more details and instructions.

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Our Building & Ground Committee and Finance Council made the decision about the pews after
a careful consideration. I know that during our last Stewardship Sunday speakers didn't have
enough time to explain it thoroughly, so let me try to give you a better picture and explanation.

When it comes to our campus and our buildings, we try to approach this with long term
planning and make prudent decisions. During my last 10 years here, as a pastor, we were able to
update our sound system (60k), replace our lights in the church and parking lot (30k), fix our roof
(100k), upgrade our AC units (100k) and continue to repair our parking lot (+200k).

The pews are now 28 years old. In general they are still in decent condition, however, there are
spots in need of repairs that really look bad. The kneelers are in the worst condition, depending
where you are sitting. During Covid those pews took an extra beating, but that is not the primary
reason for the replacement. Nothing lasts forever and you want the people to feel comfortable when
they come to the church.

We were looking at the possibility of refinishing those pews and simply replacing the kneelers;
however those pews are not solid wood (except the ends) and could only be refinished once. On
top of that the quote for refinishing was much higher than getting new wooden pews - because of
hours of labor that would take to refinish them. It just didn't make sense to spend so much money
for one refinish where you can get new wooden pews for less money. This is all after getting
several quotes from different companies that do this type of work.

In regards to the specific number when it comes to the money. The proposal we chose is with the
company that did our pews 28 years ago, when the church was built. The quote is for 145,000.
This is for solid wood pews and kneelers and includes the installation. What made this company
the most appealing was the fact that they have all our measurements and drawings from the time
of the first installation. Remaining 55K is for the carpet replacement - and again, there is no need
for us to do it at this time, but it just makes sense to do it along with the pews, since in order to
replace the carpet we need to remove all the pews.

Ever since we paid off our mortgage we have been putting money aside for maintenance. The
buildings are now almost 30 years old and you see a need for repairs in many more places. Those
are big ticket items and very expensive; however, with the inflation and prices going up, I don't
think those will get any cheaper. We are trying to be good stewards and make wise long term
decisions.

Temporary Church in Upton Hall
Starting Monday August 28th we will move everything downstairs for 4 weeks. Just like for
Christmas and Easter we will set up our basement as our temporary church. All our Masses
during a week as well as weekends will be celebrated in Upton Hall. The times will stay the
same, but the location will change.

Different Entrance
During the project the doors by the office will function as our main entrance. You will also be
able to use the doors on the west side of the church (by the restrooms) and take the stairs or
elevator downstairs. The main entrance will be closed and you will not be able to access the
church through the tower doors. I realize this is an inconvenience, but we want to make sure
everyone is safe during the project.

No Changes To The Schedule
There are no changes to our schedule. We will continue to celebrate daily Masses at 8:30am
Monday - Friday and our weekend Masses on Saturday at 5pm Sunday at 8am, 10am 12pm.
Reconciliation will also stay the same at 9am on Saturday morning.

Chapel Remains Open 24/7
We are very blessed with our beautiful chapel in the tower. People come to pray and spend time
in front of the Blessed Sacrament on a regular basis. The chapel will stay open 24/7 for anyone
to visit.

Funerals
As a community we support one another through joys and sorrows of life. It is very important to
support our grieving families. During the project we will continue the ministry, however we will
celebrate funerals at our neighbor parishes. Priests from St. Francis will go to celebrate at other
churches.