April 26, 2024
Did you miss our town hall meeting? Watch it here!
Please make sure to desiginate St. Francis de Sales Newark on your gift.
With great excitement and a shared sense of responsibility, I invite you to join me as we embark on a significant journey together - The Appeal 2024, formerly the Bishop’s Annual Appeal. Our Diocese has set ambitious goals to support Evangelization, Vocations, Catholic Schools, and Social Concerns, all of which play a crucial role in strengthening our faith community in central Ohio. You may have received a brochure from Bishop Earl Fernandes that outlines the impact of The Appeal on the needs of our Diocese.
This year’s Appeal theme “Respond To His Love,” calls us to action in response to the limitless love, compassion, and generosity of our Lord. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that the parishioners of St. Francis are always willing to “Respond to His Love.” I shared just last weekend about how, thanks to your generosity, we made great things happen during the Foundations Capital Campaign. You helped us raise over $3.5 million dollars to restore, update and expand our buildings in order to continue to support our mission, as we are making a way for continued Christian formation of the greater Newark community for years to come!
While we are rightly proud of the great work we did during the capital campaign, through a recent parishioner focus group, in what is called a Feasibility Study, we received feedback that there are a few areas we should address over the next few years and the encouragement to continue to focus on our current facilities – using well and caring well for them. The large majority of this focus group of varied parishioners asked us to focus on three areas: 1) handicap access, 2) handful of maintenance items, 3) Slattery Hall
I’m so grateful for this feedback and it got us thinking. These are all worthy and important initiatives, on the horizon, for the next few years, but how can we make these requested changes when we have just finished a capital campaign? Then I remembered…The Appeal is coming and when we have The Appeal, any funds that we raise over our goal will be returned to us to use for special projects within our parish. So, we came up with a plan and ran it by the SLT, Finance Council and Parish Council.
That’s when The Appeal + Us was born! We realize we can take the opportunity placed before us to support the diocese AND raise money for our parish and school without the effort and expense of a traditional capital campaign. When we run a traditional capital campaign, approximately 10% of funds raised are assessed to our parish as diocesan fees. However, during The Appeal +Us, 100% of funds raised that exceed our diocesan goal will be returned to us so we address these projects!
Our parish has been given a goal of $171,000 for The Appeal 2024 and we would like to aim for an additional $350,000 above that so we can complete the projects that were collectively brought to our attention as particularly important. For The Appeal, I intend to give triple my annual gift, over last year. I ask you to prayerfully consider giving double your gift, if you are able. If you’ve never donated to The Appeal, please make this the year you do! Remember that no gift is too small – every dollar matters! I do ask that whatever you contribute, please maintain your current giving to our annual offertory, which supports day-to-day parish operations.
Next weekend is commitment weekend for The Appeal + Us and your support is vital in achieving our goals, but this plan may leave you with some questions. Knowing that, there’s a letter on its way to you through the mail with some info and I’d also like to invite you to a Town Hall meeting, this Tuesday, April 30th at 7pm, right here in the church. It will also be livestreamed on our YouTube channel. During the Town Hall, I’ll share all our plans in more detail, in the prayerful hope that you will lend your hearts and support to The Appeal + Us.
Please join me in praying for the success of the Appeal +Us. I ask you to participate to the best of your ability. I am confident that with everyone’s participation, our parish can meet the challenges of today and exceed our goal. Thank you for your continued generosity.