Bulletin Column from September 19, 2021

Dear Friends at Saint Mary’s Immaculate Conception Parish:
Praised be Jesus Christ! I wanted to take this opportunity to offer one or two brief parish news updates and also to offer an invitation and an explanation regarding the parish meeting coming up in October on the 18th.
We are very blessed right now with an available time window, as well as available local resources, to move forward on some significant facilities projects that will greatly benefit our campus for the long-term. The projects largely center on addressing water and drainage issues with the church building that we are wise to try and tackle while we have the opportunity. A major phase of this work has already been completed in the area between the church and the old school. More work is ahead on all of the remaining sectors of the grounds that adjoin the church, including the steeple entry steps.
Unfortunately, all of this corrective grading and drainage work involved disrupting the lovely paver sidewalk in front of the school, as well as the east side of the church’s flower beds. When that paver work by the school was first proposed, we were not yet aware of the large extent of the campus drainage problem we were facing, so that landscaping work went ahead on the best knowledge we had at the time. I am glad that it did because it made possible some beautiful restoration work in our school. Still, this summer we faced the difficult fact that we had to go back and dig everything up, and we had only a short amount of time to get all this done. Hence the mess out in the front.
The good news is that we saved all the pavers, and we re-graded the front of the school with brand-new drains and a raised sidewalk that now drains water away, and all the pavers are going back along the sidewalk. When it is all done it will look pretty much like it did when the summer started, only now (hopefully) it will last longer with a proper ground foundation beneath it.
We will be disrupting in the future the rest of the landscaping on the rectory side of the church, including the monument to the unborn. However, just like with the school yard, our project plan includes all the necessary work to put everything back, including creating a new monument to the unborn at the needed grade pitches for full drainage.
This is all a lot of activity, I realize. And, it has been and will be messy for awhile. But, when we are all done, if all goes well, we will have hopefully taken major steps to keeping our church building foundation strong for a long time down the road. We will also have a new set of front church steps, new landscaping, new cement, etc, etc. These are all major wins for maintenance, upkeep, and accessibility to our entrances.
The reason we are holding parish meetings on the morning and evening of October 18th is so that the parish council can provide all the details on these projects, as well as the details about a variety of other exciting projects that will really benefit our campus for many years to come. It is important for you all to have all the information that we have assembled, and for you to be able to ask your questions to make sure we have not missed anything as we seek to move ahead. Please make plans to come to either the morning meeting beginning at 9am, or the evening meeting beginning at 6:30pm. We want to keep everyone informed.