BY CYNTHIA PARSONS – CONTRIBUTING WRITER
On Sept. 24, St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church and School in Brooklyn Park launched a $3 million campaign to pay off two loans, construct an access road and renovate their spaces.
Throughout the next three months, 89 volunteers will be working to secure the pledges necessary to complete these projects, pay down the debt payment and help St. Vincent de Paul be a vibrate presence in the community.
The two loans are a $550,000 loan from the 1998 construction of the Education Center and the 2015 land purchase loan, which currently stands at $1,500,000. The new $450,000 access road will improve traffic flow around the church’s campus.
The last project is to enhance some of the parish’s current spaces for more versatile meeting rooms at an estimated cost of $500,000. St. Vincent de Paul needs more room for the ministries to meet, particularly in the evening. Each need would be addressed as funds are collected, and no further financing would be necessary.
“The facility will be updated with technology and comfort for a greater sense of welcome for the young and old,” said St. Vincent de Paul Father Paul Treacy. “Starting this fall, preschoolers will be a part of the school community. There are 2,800 households that are members of the church, and the school has enrolled approximately 475 kids in preschool through eighth grade.
“St. Vincent de Paul helps people get closer to God and each other and to the community,” he continued. “It promotes a strong presence in the community and provides outreach to others which strengthens the community of faith.”
Up until early December, every parish family will be asked to consider making a sacrificial gift or pledge to the $3 million campaign. A pledge can be as a one-time gift or made over the three-year pledge period.
The pledge will go above and beyond regular financial support of the parish such as from the Sunday collections that are used to “keep the lights on” and for paying the parish’s 60 plus employees.
Donors will be recognized in campaign updates by name only. Those who donate $10,000 or more will be invited to a donor recognition dinner in spring 2017 and presented with a San Damiano cross to commemorate the campaign.
“We are encouraging parish and school families to look at whether their employer offers a matching gift program,” said John Rogers of Steier Group, campaign manager for the project. “Several large corporations offer some kind of program whereby an employee can make a gift to a nonprofit, like a church or school, and the company will match that gift in some way. We are lucky in the Twin Cities to have so many large employers that offer this kind of gift.”
The parish can be traced back to 1855, when the first holy Mass was offered in Osseo in the home of Peter Bottineau. The following year, a log cabin church was constructed and the parish began as the Church of St. Louis, the first Catholic church built in Hennepin County west of the Mississippi River.
Near the end of the Civil War, parishioners put up a new building and renamed the parish St. Vincent de Paul. As decades passed, the growing parish required more space. The Osseo red brick church was built in 1921, with a capacity of 420. St. Vincent de Paul School opened in September 1952.
The need for space keeps rising. In 2015, the parish purchased nine acres to ensure expansion possibilities for future ministries and growth.
The capital campaign is essential to retire the loans and provide funds to upgrade the facility.
“My wife and I are excited about the campaign because of the great impact it will have on our parish community,” said Mark Novak, executive chair of St. Vincent de Paul’s Capital Campaign Leadership Team. “Previous generations understood their role to preserve our legacy. It is now our time to forward, invest and continue that legacy of generosity for future generations.”
For more information, visit saintvdp.org/campaign.
Cynthia Parsons is a contributing writer for Sun Newspapers.