2012 Mission: We, the members of St. Mary’s Administration Commission, serve God and our fellow parishioners by providing administrative leadership for planning, researching, coordinating, and offering expert advice in regard to the finances and physical properties of our parish community. We continually promote and encourage the stewardship of time, talent, and treasure to strengthen the growth or our parish community.

Vision for 2014: St. Mary Parish is a warm and welcoming community, a place we all want to call “home”. Our recent improvements to the buildings and grounds have the parishioners telling their friends how proud they are to be parts of the faith community. From the moment our parishioners pull into the fresh asphalt and seal-coated parking lot, they can tell that our maintenance and administrative planning team care about this parish. Our additional handicap parking spaces where the old rectory used to stand allow better accessibility for people with physical needs. In addition to the physical enhancements to the parking lot, our new valet parking ministry further assists parishioners with physical needs.

Our new energy efficient rectory down the street has plenty of space for our pastor as well as an extra bedroom for visiting clergy. Because this home is new it requires very little maintenance, which means low cost to the parish.

The new roof, refurbished pews, and new carpeting in the church give an updated and clean look to the building. The stained glass windows have all been repaired and protected to preserve their beauty. The new sound system allows every person in the church and chapel area to hear both the spoken word as well as the music at a balanced volume and quality. Parishioners look forward to participating in Mass and other spiritual events in our sanctuary.

The columbarium at the cemetery is already half-sold as many families are pre-planning their funerals to make sure that they can be buried in our beautiful well-maintained and historic cemetery. The original founders’ church in the cemetery is attractive, with flowers and plantings surrounding it to enhance its visual beauty.

All of the recent building and maintenance projects were possible because of the stewardship of all parishioners. Not only have we been able to reduce the parish debt by $1M dollars, but our weekend collections continue to grow to meet the future needs of our parish community. The successful stewardship campaign motivated our parish community to give more of their time, talent, and financial support and now our ministries are thriving and have all the money that they need to succeed.

As a parish we have continued to sustain the tradition and the spirit that the original nine families of St. Mary Parish brought to our community.

Former Vision for 2008: As members of the Administration Commission, we are committed to the following goals: We will provide for the growth and effectiveness of our parish ministries and programs, by increasing the financial income of our parish by at least 5% per year, through stewardship programs, messages, and activities that nurture a spirit of sacrificial giving as a model for all faithful disciples of Jesus Christ to imitate and to practice. We will encourage major gifts through estate planning seminars and other planned-giving programs that provide for the long-term financial well-being of our parish community and the expansion of our ministries. We will reduce our parish debt by $1,000,000, so that we can move beyond the funding of physical buildings to concentrate on funding for the building up of people, ministries, programs, charities, and parish activities. We will renovate the eight classrooms in the elementary wing of the school, and transform the old gymnasium into the Koop Library so that our facilities will meet the needs of our active and growing parish community. We will expand and upgrade our current church building to accommodate the growing number of people who come to worship with us each weekend and who will become active members of our parish community. We will construct a columbarium in our parish cemetery for the burial of ashes, and plan for the future expansion of our parish cemetery, as a faith community who truly believes in the resurrection and eternal life.

Pastor’s Special Administrative Vision for 2008 – 2014:

• Parking lot repairs, new church carpet, refinished pews, reupholstered chairs
• Church window repairs, new or more secure outside church doors, ADA doors
• New church sound system, new upgraded organ, new electronic hymn boards
• Burnett Hall: interior security doors between the hall and the lower level entrance
• Eventual church building expansion, eventual new rectory, eventual bell tower
• New church roof, new clerestory windows, enhanced church fire safety system