Dear Parishioners and supporters of Immaculate Conception Church,
I hope you’ve had a chance to see the end of the year financial report for our parish and school. You can find it on our parish website. Along with my fellow friars and the Parish Staff, I am grateful for your ongoing financial support of our local faith community, its life and mission.
The parish financials are improving. During the height of the pandemic, offertory dropped significantly – offertory is just now approaching what it was pre-pandemic. This past year we were $90,000 short of the offertory collected in the year prior to the pandemic. We had therefore planned on taking $70,000 from savings to re-open and maintain operations. Because of the generosity of the parish, we were able to finish the year with a $96,000 surplus.
During the years we were paying off the mortgage on the sanctuary and the parish office building, some important maintenance items were deferred. The parish is making progress in replacing systems that are past end of life, yet there are more deferred maintenance issues to address. This past year, our Church spent $184,000 in capital repairs. The cost of most of these repairs was shared with our school. Still, Immaculata spent $285,000 on capital projects this past fiscal year.
There is still much work to be done. That includes putting a new roof on our church and replacing the carpet in our worship space. We are exploring alternatives to the carpet and developing a realistic timetable for various deferred maintenance projects, which is a challenge, giving the high usage of our worship space.
As pastor, I want to make sure we have enough financial resources allocated to maintain the physical plant of our church in very good and honorable condition. This is why we will be increasing the number of special 2nd collections for parish maintenance from once a year to every three months. There is one coming up on the weekend of October 1st and 2nd. I hope we can count on your generous financial support.
Our parishioners continue to be very big-hearted in supporting various charity and justice initiatives in our local community, at the regional and national level, and internationally. You can find more detailed information about this commitment on our website.
I hope that many of you will come to the Saint Francis Festival on Saturday, October 1. At the end of that celebration, we are going to have a dedication and blessing of the solar panels on the roof of our school. This is an important step in the ongoing process of energy transition at our campus. Following up on the commitments made in the Laudato Si’ Action Platform, over the next six years we seek to become a carbon-neutral, ecologically sustainable campus where our love for God can be witnessed in our care for our common home, for the poor and future generations. It is not only the Church but also various educational institutions that are joining the broader movement toward this urgently needed, ecologically-sound transformation. Here in Durham, I’m delighted to see Duke University launch an ambitious, comprehensive plan to become a national leader among the educational institutions in the U.S. in responding to the climate emergency. I hope that many of our parishioners will register and join me in attending the large public event on September 29 at Duke celebrating this historic moment in our local community: https://2022.climate.duke.edu/
Peace and all good,
-Fr. Jacek Orzechowski, OFM
I hope you’ve had a chance to see the end of the year financial report for our parish and school. You can find it on our parish website. Along with my fellow friars and the Parish Staff, I am grateful for your ongoing financial support of our local faith community, its life and mission.
The parish financials are improving. During the height of the pandemic, offertory dropped significantly – offertory is just now approaching what it was pre-pandemic. This past year we were $90,000 short of the offertory collected in the year prior to the pandemic. We had therefore planned on taking $70,000 from savings to re-open and maintain operations. Because of the generosity of the parish, we were able to finish the year with a $96,000 surplus.
During the years we were paying off the mortgage on the sanctuary and the parish office building, some important maintenance items were deferred. The parish is making progress in replacing systems that are past end of life, yet there are more deferred maintenance issues to address. This past year, our Church spent $184,000 in capital repairs. The cost of most of these repairs was shared with our school. Still, Immaculata spent $285,000 on capital projects this past fiscal year.
There is still much work to be done. That includes putting a new roof on our church and replacing the carpet in our worship space. We are exploring alternatives to the carpet and developing a realistic timetable for various deferred maintenance projects, which is a challenge, giving the high usage of our worship space.
As pastor, I want to make sure we have enough financial resources allocated to maintain the physical plant of our church in very good and honorable condition. This is why we will be increasing the number of special 2nd collections for parish maintenance from once a year to every three months. There is one coming up on the weekend of October 1st and 2nd. I hope we can count on your generous financial support.
Our parishioners continue to be very big-hearted in supporting various charity and justice initiatives in our local community, at the regional and national level, and internationally. You can find more detailed information about this commitment on our website.
I hope that many of you will come to the Saint Francis Festival on Saturday, October 1. At the end of that celebration, we are going to have a dedication and blessing of the solar panels on the roof of our school. This is an important step in the ongoing process of energy transition at our campus. Following up on the commitments made in the Laudato Si’ Action Platform, over the next six years we seek to become a carbon-neutral, ecologically sustainable campus where our love for God can be witnessed in our care for our common home, for the poor and future generations. It is not only the Church but also various educational institutions that are joining the broader movement toward this urgently needed, ecologically-sound transformation. Here in Durham, I’m delighted to see Duke University launch an ambitious, comprehensive plan to become a national leader among the educational institutions in the U.S. in responding to the climate emergency. I hope that many of our parishioners will register and join me in attending the large public event on September 29 at Duke celebrating this historic moment in our local community: https://2022.climate.duke.edu/
Peace and all good,
-Fr. Jacek Orzechowski, OFM