My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
This week we will be celebrating our Independence Day. We give thanks to God for the gift of our freedom, and we continue to remember all who serve in the military and their families in our prayers.
We will be having our Totus Tuus summer camp from July 7th to the 11th from 9am to 2:30pm for Grades 1-6 and July 6th – 10th from 6:30pm-8:45pm for Grades 7-12 for our Family of Parishes. Totus Tuus (Totally Yours) is a fun and energetic parish-based summer catechetical program, for both grade school age children and junior and senior high school youth. To register please go to our website https://moqchurch.org/totus-tuus/.
St John Vianney received a memorial gift from Deacon Frank Telich. As you know Deacon Frank loved St John Vianney and left us his estate as his parting gift. Part of the gift was used to pay down our Parish debt per his request. Another part of that estate gift was put into our Parish endowment to support the future of our Parish and the final portion of the gift was used to build a Marian patio garden that we will be dedicating to his memory. The Marian patio will be located by the side entrance of our Church. Work started on the Marian patio garden last week and is more or less complete. We are currently waiting for the statue of Mary to arrive. When that is done, the finishing touches of the Marian patio will be completed (slab stone and spots lights) with the installation of the statue of Mary. We also had a fire pit installed by the patio outside the social hall at St John Vianney. This will provide a gathering area for our youth and young adults or any group from our Family of Parishes.
The parking lot at Mary Our Queen is in bad shape. The cost to fix, mill and overlay our current asphalt parking lot is roughly about $150,000. I have been trying to set aside some funds over the next few years to make that happen, however, I am told some parts of the parking lot need to be done sooner than later. Thanks to your generosity we have raised $96,572.20. I would like to thank our Men’s Club for giving us the proceeds from their Parish Picnic for the parking lot. If you can help us with the cost of the parking lot, kindly send your donation to the Parish Office.
Once work for the parking lot is done at Mary Our Queen, work will be done to patch up the cracked concrete at St John Vianney. We will also be getting more work done to improve the drainage of the parking lot.
There will be some sod work done on the MOQ playground by the soccer field. As we had to open up the playground for the school last fall, we were not able to properly put sod on the ground. The area where the sod work will be done will be fenced off to give the new grass an opportunity to grow. We ask that you kindly stay away from that area. Thank you for your cooperation.
Work is also being done to upgrade the remaining 4 classrooms of the lower level of the school building. This includes new LVT flooring, ceiling tiles, new lighting and a new video projector for each classroom. These upgrades are made possible because of your generosity during the MARQUEE Fundraiser.
Work to replace the lighting controls for the Narthex, the Church and the Blessed Sacrament Chapel at St John Vianney has been completed. We are currently working on programming on the lighting control system.
Happy 4th of July,
Fr Marc
