Repayment of the Church Loan

Repayment of the Church Loan

      This holiday season will mark our fourth in the new St. Therese Parish Church.   Many of our parishioners recall its official ground breaking in December of 2013 and the beautiful dedication ceremony by Bishop Jugis in April of 2015.

      While much of the visible work took place over those 17 months, the roots of this facility go back much further. The initial planning began in 2009 with meetings of the building committee and capital campaign committee. The planning process also included meetings with hundreds of parishioners to obtain their input on what would make for a great worship space. The planning committees, working with our architects and using that input from the parishioners and from the diocese, put a vision in place that allowed such a wonderful worship space to be completed. By the time the building was dedicated in 2015, the full budget was about $8,000,000. This included the building itself as well as extensive site improvements, such as adding more parking spaces and the water run-off pond over by the Parish Life Center.

     While the majority of this was funded by the very generous support of the St. Therese parish family, a loan was still needed to ensure we had sufficient funds to fulfill our parish vision. A loan of $1,500,000 was granted by the diocesan bank and we were given until 2023 to retire the debt. With great joy, we have the funds on hand to make our final loan payment to retire the loan on the church four years early! This is something we all should be very proud of and is a great testimony to the love and generosity of so many families of this parish.

      So, as we enter another holiday season here at St. Therese, we have so much to be thankful for and much hope for the future. We still have a debt related to the purchase of the adjacent properties, but with the successful payment of the church loan, we can move forward in confidence. We are a growing and vibrant community, with thousands of members participating in hundreds of activities and ministries every year. We truly have so much to celebrate this holiday season!

Fr. Mark