Dear friends of St. Katharine Drexel Catholic Church,

We want to give you an update on our progress toward the construction of our permanent church building. 

In order for us to begin building our new home, the archdiocese requires that we have half of our projected construction costs in the bank and the other half pledged. When we began our second campaign, the targeted amount to build was $5M. 

The “Almost Home” shows we received nearly $1.2M in the first campaign. In our current campaign, we have received over $800k with an additional $280k in outstanding pledges. And after the sale of a portion of our land to PACT Charter School, we will have another nearly $960k. This leaves us with approximately $1.7M worth of work to do. 

The goal of $5M to build is not a stationary target since the longer it takes us to reach the goal, construction costs will continue to increase and the target amount to build also increases. Through hard work and prayer, we want to reach our goal by 2023. At that time, PACT Charter School plans to begin construction of their new school building. If we reach our goal by 2023, we can save construction costs on infrastructure as it can be done in collaboration with the school.

Just think, by having a permanent home, we can stop paying rent!

God Bless,
Capital Campaign Committee
 

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

As we navigate these unprecedented times one would think that the last thing we would concern ourselves with as a faith community is a capital campaign. From my perspective that would be negative thinking and a missed opportunity. A capital campaign is about being attentive to the present needs of a community as well as building for its future.

Our Holy Father, Francis wrote once that “Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love, a love which precedes us and upon which we can lean for security and for building our lives. Transformed by this love, we gain fresh vision, new eyes to see; we realize that it contains a great promise of fulfillment, and that a vision of the future opens up before us.”

The Saint Katharine Drexel Church Community of Ramsey is grounded in our faith in the living God who loves us and calls all of us to bring the presence of Jesus to our world. So it may continually be transformed and claimed for Christ. We do that through our liturgies, through our community outreach and works for justice, through our faith formation programs for all, and through our social interaction with one another.  All of which demands a physical place for us to be community.  While we have successfully done that in our temporary space at 7101 143^rd Ave, here in Ramsey, it has limited the possibilities for our growth and an even more solid footing for living our Mission “to see Christ in all, and be Christ to all.”  It is absolutely imperative therefore that we build a church and parish center we can call home and from which we will continue to bring Christ to our world.

It is for this reason that we are launching into a second capital campaign – Building for Eternity – Now.  It has been said that “God can never be outdone in generosity,” that being true, we can all extend that reality by our generosity, and by our working together to build for the future of Saint Katharine Drexel Catholic Church.  Please join me and all your brothers and sisters in the parish in this endeavor.  Let us all take to heart and place our trust in the words of our Patron Saint, Katharine Drexel– “press forward and fear nothing.”  God Bless!

Father Paul A. Jaroszeski