HISTORY

In August 1998 when Bishop Frederick officially announced the formation of the new St. Albert the Great Parish centered on McKenzie Lake a new faith community was born. Most of us previously belonged to either St Patrick's or St Bonaventure 's Parish and over the years have contributed our time, talents and treasures to the building of these two very strong and vibrant parishes.

Since 1996, Catholics from the McKenzie Lake - Douglasdale area, had gathered at both Cardinal Newman and Monsignor Smith Schools to celebrate mass as an extension to St. Patrick's .

The Parish has already put down roots in McKenzie Town with the purchase of a home located at 20 Prestwick Road, that is being used as both the rectory and the parish office. The Knights of Columbus have been instrumental in finishing the basement so that it can be used as a meeting place while we wait for our new church to be built. Although this is a good start, the space is limited and we can not offer all of the programs that we would like to.

When a new parish is formed the Diocese Building Committee looks for a suitable piece of land and negotiates with the developer.

Next the Diocese will purchase the land on behalf of the parish once a strong commitment in the form of sufficient funds to start construction of the building is put together by the Parish. The reason the Dioceses wants us to have the down payment first is obvious, they don't want the land sitting vacant having paid for the land.

The cost of the land for the first 10 years is covered by the Diocese, after which the parish becomes responsible for the loan. By that time we should have the building paid off. So we will not worry about the land for the time being.

We are responsible for raising 40 percent of the cost of the building, landscaping and furniture. The Diocese will lend us the money in the form of a 10 year mortgage for the remaining 60 percent. Like any mortgage there is an interest component and we will need to make regular payments on that mortgage.

 So if we want a church built for St Albertth Great, we as a parish will have to raise the money needed for the down payment on the building as well as continue to support the paying down of that debt over the next ten years.

With the current size of our Parish and the growth that we expect over the next 10 years we will need to build a church that can seat at least 1000 people. This along with the other facilities that will be needed to support a strong and vibrant faith community, dictate that the church will need to be on the order of 25 to 30 thousand square feet.

Of course this is just an estimate and one thing that we can guarantee is that this number will change with time as we refine the details.

The Building Fund currently has 141 thousand in it, which is about 10 percent of what we need to get started. We raised that mount of money without any formal plans or ideas other than one day we will need to build a church so lets start raising the money. Imagine what we can do with a firm action plan in mind.

 In the past churches have participate in bingo's and casinos to raise money but these are both a forms of gambling and the Bishop has discouraged this form of fundraising as it takes money from those who can least afford it. Each and everyone of us have a different financial situation, our parish spans the full spectrum from young families with a mortgage and children to feed to those who are now retired and are on fixed incomes. So we leave it up to you to decide, how you can support our efforts through either time, talent or treasure.

Over the 18 month period this represents a financial commitment of 2100 dollars. This breaks down to 120 dollars per month 27 dollars per week or 4 dollars per day. On an after tax basis this is even less.

When we look at our day to day financial obligations the cost of building our faith community is not so great.

For instance a night out at the movies for a family of 4 is about 70 dollars for the movie and treats and we think nothing of paying that for a one and a half hour show.

Average repair bill on a car $500, cable TV 35 to 50 dollars per month.

What we need to find out is an indication of the level of financial commitment we have within the parish to undertake this project. We also have to remember that once we get the building built we will have to make mortgage payments as well as pay the cost of maintaining the facility. Based on the same 600 families the commitment is about 12 to 15 dollars a week, for the next 10 years. We have to also remember that the parish will be growing and more people will be contributing.

In the entrance we have two sets of envelopes addressed to each and every family in the parish. The first is the Bishops Annual Appeal and the second is our St Albert the Great Parish Building Fund letter and Pledge Form. The envelopes are ordered alphabetically by last name. We ask that you please pick up your own envelope after mass. Those envelopes left after the 11 am mass today will be mailed.

The letter in the envelope is basically a summary of what you just heard and is intended for those who were not able to attend one of the three presentations. The pledge form has two parts, the top portion is your pledge that we ask you to return by the 9th of April. Remember that we have 18 months to collect the money but we need to know approximately how much money we expect to have at the end of the 18 months. Each pledge form, is personalized for your convenience. We ask that you take the forms home and discuss this as a family and ask yourselves how important is it to have a formal church building as a place of worship. We may decide as a parish that we want to continue using the schools for Sunday mass and using other churches for weddings and funerals. A building alone will not create a strong faith community but it will focus our efforts and give us a place we can call our own.