Dear Church,
It has been almost 13 years since the Lord called me to serve Him at Saint Patrick Parish, and I am grateful for His call. I am privileged to witness your faith, goodness and generosity as together we strive to grow in holiness and affirm God’s love to those around us.
Together as a parish family we have retired our crushing mortgage debt of $1.2 million, reduced our operating budget by over $150k and are now operating in the black. During this time, we continued to make significant capital improvements to our parish center, church and school including relocating the parish offices to make them more accessible, painting the outside of the parish center, replacing the church, parish center and school roofs, converting all buildings to LED lighting to reduce our electrical costs, repairing the rectory façade, beginning the necessary repairs to the framework surrounding our stained glass windows, and completing the entire remodeling of the lower church. We are now looking at the cost to repair the masonry around the parish center and church (projected cost $10k), a new sound system for the upper church (projected cost $75k), a security system for the church, parish center and school (projected cost $110k), and repair of the Steeple (projected cost $120k).
Since the COVID pandemic our offertory has significantly decreased by approximately $10k per month as fewer people are physically attending Mass….and that is totally understandable. At this time, I would like to make a concerted effort to try and increase our offertory collection and decrease our costs by urging everyone to please consider online giving. Increasing our offertory through online giving allows us to support the many ministries and programs that make Saint Patrick Parish such a vibrant and faith-filled community as well as complete the necessary renovations to our Parish Facilities. Please consider how you can continue to help Saint Patrick Parish by participating in our on-line giving through either using the donation tab on our Website (www.stpatrickstoneham.org), or establishing Saint Patrick Parish as a vendor on your online bill pay system.
I am extremely grateful for everyone’s generosity to the parish and I thank you in advance for your consideration.
Fr. Mario