We are the grateful beneficiaries of the generosity of those who came before us. In particular, we have a parish campus built to the highest forward-thinking standards when built during 1940 – 1960. But over time all buildings need refreshing and ours were no exception.
In 2014 Monsignor Pollard began to convene meetings among our parish councils and our major ministries to see what could be done for the Benedict Center, our former parish convent, a building which was both underused and deteriorating. Those discussions led to a growing consensus around a major capital project to completely renovate the Benedict Center into a modern early childhood education center, plus new space for our growing adult ministries. That led in turn to plans to reconfigure space in our Lemont and Keene buildings to renovate and make more efficient use of those buildings, again for the benefit of our school and adult ministries.
These plans were developed from within our parish, based on input from our parishioners and teachers who used those spaces and knew what we needed, and were then turned into practical and cost-effective solutions by architects and contractors with deep experience in retrofitting buildings such as ours.
Most of all, our plans depended on you – our faithful parishioners who gave us a strong vote of confidence in the future of our parish through their pledges of money to fund this ambitious goal. Our original pledge goal was $5 million, designed to fund the majority of the anticipated cost, with the remainder to come from future parish revenue. We exceeded that target, with over $5.2 million in pledges. Our parishioners have faithfully paid their pledges, whether one-time or over time, and we will continue to seek new pledges to cover all the costs of this wonderful project. Despite COVID we have made extensive use of our newly renovated spaces, to the delight of parishioners of all ages.
We now come to the end of Phase III of our project, the renovation of the former Rose Room in the basement of the Lemont Building and its full restoration to a Parish Center.
Let us celebrate the vision fully realized. I invite you to join your fellow parishioners on Sunday October 17 after the 9am Mass for a blessing and opening of the Parish Center. We will have the Parish Center open on that day following the blessing after Mass until 1:00 pm. This will allow those coming to the later Masses to come in either before or after Mass to enjoy this new space that will serve the many needs of our parish and school.
I look forward to your presence on this joyful day to thank God for his blessings and to thank one another for making this possible.