Blog

While it may seem like a lot of vacations and well deserved time takes place over the summer including at St Vincent de Paul, much work continues during the summer. I would like to share some of the accomplishments of the summer.

Let’s start at St Patrick Chapel. A new door handle was installed on the front door of the rectory as the old one would not let us use our key any more. Two dead/dying trees between the rectory and church were cut down and the stumps were ground up and removed as well. Yellow paint stripes were repainted on the steps leading into church and into the basement. The biggest needs at St Patrick right now include: plumbing in the rectory to stop a leak that is coming from a toilet on third floor, a new refrigerator to replace the one in the store room in the church basement so we can continue with our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, switching the back and front sacristies for better use of areas, and inventorying the items of that entire chapel location. We are planning on installing the heating and air conditioning at the chapel next. Why here? It is the largest chapel and it is currently operating at 50% since only one of the systems is operable. This has been the case since we had the gas leak issue on Super bowl Sunday 2023.

Sacred Heart Rectory, as we know, finished the heating and air conditioning project just as summer was starting. Many have been looking at ways to improve the sitting area in the patio area so that debris falling out of the trees does not land on the heads of those partaking in the relaxation of the patio. It seems there are donors, as has been the case for all of the patio work, to bring this to fruition during the fall months. Thanks to a lot of cleaning, decluttering and removal of unusable items, we have a very clean usable space on the blue carpet area in the basement of the rectory. This is where Fr Martin’s and Kevin Morales’ open offices are located. Each has a desk, chair, computer, bookstand and bulletin board, so they are rather Spartan in their area. To put these offices there, we had to move some phone lines and internet connections. We’ve replaced the door handle on the side door as it came off in our hand. Much patchwork over seams in walls and ceilings on the business floor of the rectory has been done. All lawn mowing, weeding and landscaping along with all cleaning of the rectory has been done through the generous work of volunteers as well as most of the cleaning of the chapels. Sacred Heart Church has had much work done through NightWatch on fire alarms and sprinkler systems in the chapel. All of Sacred Heart Chapel has been inventoried. For the rectory, it is hoped we will replace carpeting on the business floor (including kitchenette,) replace the flooring in the kitchen and staircase and blue carpeting on lower level. For the Chapel, like St Patrick it is hoped that soon we can have electronic screens replace fliers and posters in our gathering areas.

Renditions of what the life of St John the Evangelists done in murals has been sent to Autenreib for them to show us what a painted chapel at the St John Renewal Center would look like, which was one of the requirements from Archbishop McKnight to help him determine whether the Renewal Center was feasible for him. We await a new bishop before putting any plans forth. A parishioner donated one of St. John church’s old side altars that is now used as the main altar. More about Sacred Heart School, soon.
So, as you can see it has been a productive summer with many projects happening and more to hopefully come to fruition. The most exciting from a ministry perspective is the hiring of Kevin Morales as Evangelization Director. Soon, we will have a full update on what is happening in that new ministry for our parish.