February 19, 2023

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We are a week away from MARQUEE – Our Parish’s Annual Fundraiser.  We invite you to mark your calendars for February 25th.  The theme for our MARQUEE this year is – One for the Generations.  This year our Parish celebrates our 60th Anniversary.  Our MARQUEE celebration is in light of all that has been done to build up our community for the last 60 years.  We are grateful for the work of our MARQUEE Chairs Mike and Rachelle Heser and Adam and Tiffany Heser and for all involved in organizing this event.  Invitations have been mailed out this week. If you have not received your invitation, kindly contact our Parish Office.

Last week we had representatives from our Catholic High Schools here to present Scholarships.  This year we had 11 of our students receive scholarships to Catholic High Schools.  Congratulations to all our High Scholl Scholarship recipients.

Congratulations to our MOQ Robotics whose teams won various awards in the State Championships including the Design Award, STEM Award, the Think Award, the Teamwork Champions Award, Robot Skills and the Excellence Award.  There will be 3 teams representing Mary Our Queen at the VEX IQ World Championships.

Congratulations to our Confirmation candidates who were confirmed by our Archbishop last Wednesday February 15.  Please keep them in your prayers.  We would also like to thank all our Religious Education Teachers and Facilitators for journeying with our Confirmation Candidates over the last two years.  This year we will have a combined Confirmation with St John Vianney as we continue to collaborate with each other.

There will be several projects taking place this summer.  The first involves the installation of new hot water piping with a variable volume terminal unit with a heating water coil in each classroom which connects to the existing ductwork in the upper level of our School this Summer.  The hot water piping in the lower level of our School had been replaced over the last two Summers.  The other part is the installation of a new H/VAC system in the Gym.  This will complete the phasing out of the old steam piping in our School.  The cost of the new H/VAC system in the Gym is $200,000 and we are hoping that this year’s MARQUEE Raise the Paddle would cover the cost of the installation.   We are also looking at the replacement of the roof in the Kenny Center which is in need of replacement.

We are in the midst of changing our database, communications and online giving software.  While this is taking longer than we had expected, however this new software would give us the opportunity to integrate our Church software to something which is more comprehensive instead of using multiple software applications that requires the replication of different tasks.  We will be sending communications to inform you of the process and how you are able to log into this new software with ease.  As we enter the new year, you will be hearing about our Stewardship renewal plans for our Parish.  This will not be just monetary, but it will incorporate the financial, ministry and spiritual needs of our parish and school community.

God’s Blessings,

Fr Marc