At the bottom of this letter you will find our financial report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012. We have been very blessed with the generous assistance of our parishioners in meeting our expenses.
This past year we had very few major projects other than moving forward with our goal to build a parish center. We had some air conditioning problems that have been resolved. The air conditioning for the church will remain to be a concern considering the age of our units and the South Florida climate. Thank God we have been able to repair them so far without having to replace the units.
Progress is being made on our new parish center and by this time next year we should be in our new building! This will be a great addition for our Faith Formation program and other ministries. We have been growing with more families with younger children. This year’s First Communion group will be double the size of previous years!
We have been so blessed with our Parish Pastoral Council and Finance Committee members who have given us excellent oversight and so much of their time and talent. If you read the inside of the bulletin you will see the list of the various ministries we have at St. Patrick. The list doesn’t tell the story however of so many who have contributed, in the various ministries, in making St. Patrick a vibrant parish that strives to live out our mission statement. Participation in a ministry is an opportunity to grow in the faith and our community. Through your generosity we have been able to continue to assist our mission in Haiti and other charitable organizations.
We thank God for your presence and prayers and support. We thank God that you all help to make St. Patrick a welcoming parish. May we continue to do all we can to live out our faith in Jesus Christ and being his disciples. May Our Lord continue to bless you with his peace and compassion!
We have been so blessed here at St. Patrick’s! It is hard to imagine that we are celebrating 25 years of our parish’s life. There is so much to be grateful for. We have been blessed over the years with so many who have worked together in making St. Patrick the welcoming parish that it is. Those of you who have been here from the beginning must have very fond memories of our humble beginnings in the Fireside Inn. It was your spirit in pulling together a new Catholic Community that was warm and welcoming that set the tone for those of us who followed. Thank you for your generous caring spirit!
As we look to the future, we thank God that we will soon have a new Parish Center that will meet our current needs and future needs more adequately. We will be able to hold many more social functions, Faith Formation programs and increase our efforts in building community.
Thank you to all who made this celebration possible. May God continue to bless us all as we strive to grow in his loving Spirit. May we continue to keep our eyes on serving Our Lord and trusting in his abundant graces. Happy Anniversary!
We give thanksgiving to God for all the Lord has blessed us with. Our parish has been blessed with so many parishioners who participate in our various ministries. It is evident in the welcoming and warm spirit people experience coming to St. Patrick. So much goes on “behind” the scenes that, if you didn’t read the bulletin, you might not be aware of. We have the volunteers who work in our gift shop who make it possible for us to use the proceeds to support missions. We have very active Youth and Young Adult ministries. We have a vibrant Faith Formation Program. The Home bound ministry brings care and communion to those who can’t make it to church so they still feel connected to the larger community. The Homeless and Needy ministry prepares the food and brings it to the homeless with clothing and other much needed materials. They most especially bring a sense of dignity to the less fortunate. We have the Greeters who make people feel welcomed with the Ushers who assist at Mass, the Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist who distribute Holy Communion, the Lectors who proclaim the scriptures; the Altar Servers who assist the priest at the altar. We have an involved Parish Pastoral Council and Finance Council that assist the pastor with the proper operation of the parish. St. Patrick is blessed with a Council of Catholic Women that is active. We have the Raffle Committee who operates our largest fund raiser of the year which is a huge job. We have our dedicated Golf Committee that works hard to put together a fun day for the parish. Our adult choir under the direction of Alan Bowman and the children’s choir under the direction of Sandra Baran continue to grow. The larger choirs add so much beauty to the celebration of the Eucharist. I really can’t go on and list everyone but it is you the people of St. Patrick who make it all possible. It is your sacrifice of time and talent that makes St. Patrick the parish it is with your treasure. So many of our parishioners live discipleship, we do what we do for the sake of Jesus Christ!
Our parish is growing; we have increased numbers of families with younger children. St. Patrick’s has 97 students at our All Saints Catholic School. This is an increase of 19 over last year’s enrollment. We have the second largest enrollment out of the six parishes that support All Saints. The attendance of students in our Faith Formation Program is the largest we have ever had. We currently have 170 students.
Our Capital Campaign, through your generosity, is moving forward. We have reached the goal of almost 3 million pledged toward our goal of 4 million. We will have more news in later October about the Capital Campaign and where we are with architect’s drawings etc. Our new building will be a wonderful asset to the parish that will allow us to accomplish even more in living the life that the Gospel calls us to.
Campaign Announced for New Parish Center Building a Corner Stone of Faith We are pleased to announce the start of the Cornerstone of Faith Capital Campaign to construct a New Parish Center here at St. Patrick Parish. The New Parish Center, when completed, will provide us with much needed classrooms for the religious education and faith formation of both children and adults, administrative offices, meeting and conference rooms, and a large hall for parish gatherings. The hall will also include a kitchen to support our social gatherings and the preparation of food for our outreach to the poor.
The cost of construction is estimated at $4,000,000. Our goal is to ask every family in the parish to consider a three year pledge of financial support to the campaign. This will include both permanent and seasonal visitors alike. The active phase of the campaign will be conducted from January through April of this year. Our plan for requesting your support is to invite everyone to attend a reception. By conducting the campaign in this manner, it will give us an opportunity to speak to you personally and ask for your support. This will be a much friendlier way to meet and talk about our plans than by conducting a house to house solicitation. You will receive an invitation to attend one of the campaign receptions in the next two months.
The New Parish Center will be constructed directly opposite the main entrance of the church, on the west side. It will be a two story building with approximately 20,500 sq. ft. Once completed, we will remove the current temporary building, in accordance with our agreement with the County. The area where the current hall stands will be converted to a garden and additional parking.
We hope to call upon many of our parishioners to help with the implementation of the campaign; to host receptions, provide office support and for general leadership and support roles.
During the campaign, we will provide you with reception information and regular updates in the bulletin and from the pulpit. You will also notice we have placed signs around the property to help give you an impression of what the new center will look like.
These are exciting times here at St. Patrick as we try to meet the needs of the parish community and prepare for our future.
We are confident we can count on each of you to help make this campaign successful. You have always responded with generosity and support.
Finally, let us pray and ask the Lord to inspire and lead our effort.
In Christ’s Peace,
Fr. Brian FlanaganFor
more information on our Campaign for New Parish Center please click the link below!
On the reverse side of this letter you will find our Financial Report for 2009-2010. Thanks be to God and your generosity we have been able to meet our obligations and maintain our beautiful parish facilities. We have not had any major capital improvements this year. We did have the marble cleaned and polished in the church. We have had several issues with the air conditioning system. We had to replace one of the smaller units and the larger units have required expensive repairs. Due to the generosity of one of our parishioners we were able to expand the deck on the current parish hall to provide more space for cooking for our parish events. The donation also made it possible to install a proper awning to offer shade and rain protection for the cooks. We also had some drainage work done to help prevent flooding. We also have increased our trees and shrubbery to pre-hurricane level, as required to meet county code.
This past year, our Parish Council, Finance Committee and Building Committee worked on the vision for a new Parish Center. Our Building Committee worked many hours studying the needs of the parish meeting with various members of ministries and staff. Due to the increased number of families and children, it was obvious that our original site plan for a parish center would not meet our needs. The building Committee, using the information gathered from the staff and people in ministries, came up with a plan that showed how much dedicated space we would need for classrooms, a social hall, offices etc. It was recommended by the Parish Council that we move forward to see if we could receive the proper variances needed from Palm Beach County to increase the size of the future Parish Center. We interviewed several firms that do professional planning and contracted with the one that best fit our needs. They did all stages of the application planning and successfully guided it through final approval by the Board of County Commissioners. Additional information will follow.
In other news, Sister Mary Therese has retired from full time ministry and is continuing working part time at Holy Spirit in Lantana. She is enjoying being able to have more time to devote to her family, friends and prayer. We have added Susan Molloy to our staff as our Director of Faith Formation. Susan has extensive experience in all aspects of Faith Formation and we are blessed to have her serving with us. Our first Vacation Bible Camp was a great success due to the efforts of Scott Aitken, our Youth Leader, and a wonderful group of volunteers of all ages! Our parish is continually being blessed with more people joining us and getting involved in various ministries. We look to the future with hope in Jesus Christ. God bless you all for your prayers and support making St. Patrick the vibrant parish it is.
Dear Parishioners, The new year brings new challenges and exciting opportunities for our parish. The building we currently use as our parish hall was originally placed on the property to be used as a temporary multi-purpose building until a new place of worship could be built. For ten years the wooden building served all of the parishes’ needs. This facility can no longer meet the current or long term needs of the parish for religious education classes, general office space, parish social events or use by the numerous St. Patrick ministries and activities. It has always been planned that this facility would be removed when our parish needs exceeded the space available in this temporary facility. It has become obvious that the time has come.
After several years of review and planning by myself, the Pastoral Council and Construction Committee, we are about to embark on a new and much needed undertaking to improve our facilities at St. Patrick by building a new parish center. While we are acutely aware of the current economic issues that many people are facing, we do not want to lose sight of the future needs of our parish.
A number one consideration, beside the space needs, is that the current parish center is a temporary wooden building. Our current parish center has survived three hurricanes by the grace of God. If the parish center would take a direct hit we would lose our educational programs, administrative offices and most of our other ministerial and social functions.
As we are all aware we are badly limited by the current building’s design to carry on multiple meetings or social events. We need to set up the hall for religious education on Saturday for Sunday classes which limits the number of social functions we can hold. The flimsy dividing walls make it difficult to have more than one meeting at a time and can be quite noisy during religious education classes.
A St. Patrick Construction Committee has been formed which has defined the site requirements of the new parish center which will be located directly across from the main doors of the church. After a bidding process, a site planning firm has been engaged to obtain the approvals needed to build the new parish center. This process is going well and it is anticipated that site plan approval will be obtained later this year, at which time we will be able to share future details. The building will include offices, classrooms, meeting rooms and a social hall.
The need for a new Parish Center to meet the current and future needs of our parish is listed as the number one priority of our Pastoral Council. A fund raising committee will be formed in the near future to determine the method, time frame and funds needed to build our new Parish Center. We will achieve our goal through your continued support, generosity and prayers.
