Dear Parishioners,

It’s time to give a little update on our progress with the recovery efforts since the tornado. By the time you are reading this column, the flagpole at the main drive should have been replaced. The tornado bent up the flagpole and made the current pole unsafe. We needed to go with an entirely new flagpole (that insurance replaced for us) that should give us many good years of service. In addition to this, you may have noticed that we lost the outdoor Cross in front of the Stanley Centre. This has stood there for many years and weathered a lot of other storms and the Michigan weather. The tornado snapped it off at the ground and initially we thought that we could put this in the ground again and put some new cement around it to anchor in the ground once again. But as we talked about doing this, we looked at it several times as it lay on the ground. We realized that the weather had taken quite a toll on this outdoor Cross and its lifespan was over. We were also afraid that if we put this back in the ground and cemented it in, the next storm might take it down. At some point we will look at replacing the Cross with something new. 

Some parishioners have also asked if we are going to be doing any kind of fundraising to pay for additional costs that we have incurred over and above what the insurance will pay for. As we keep on finding little things that need to be taken care of, we are in weekly contact with the insurance representative and many things are still being paid for. For the rectory, we have made some changes to the building to make it more handicap accessible and to attach the garage to the main house. We expect some additional expenditures that the parish will have to make. But right now, we are able to cover these expenses out of our reserves and are not planning any additional fundraising at this time. Thank you to the parishioners that have voluntarily helped us to relieve our expenses. 

Thanks for reading! 

Fr. Mark