Campaign for Enhanced Facilities

If you’d like to donate, either:

• Give Online Here!

OR

• write out and deliver a separate check to “Holy Family Catholic Church” clearly indicating “capital campaign” in the memo line. 

Please make sure that any contribution to this campaign is above and beyond your regular support for the ongoing operations of our parish.

Thank you!

It's Finally Here!

We're moving ahead with a Capital Campaign to build a new Parish Life Center!

Our campaign is called "Grateful Hearts – Forward in Faith." This theme conveys our gratitude to those whose sacrifices have made Holy Family what it is today and our desire to build upon that tradition to ensure a dynamic future for our community.

Over the next couple of months, information will be provided about this effort in various ways including: here on the website, bulletin, Flocknote emails (sign up here!), gatherings, Facebook, etc. Please look for the campaign logo (seen above) in upcoming communication materials to learn more about our building project and how it will enhance Holy Family’s future and make a positive impact on generations of parishioners and students.

Please join us for a celebration kickoff after Masses the weekend of Saturday, March 2nd, and Sunday, March 3rd.

We also ask you to pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to guide and bless our vision and efforts (see the prayer at the bottom of this page). This is an important moment in our parish’s history and we thank you for your interest!

Please keep this intention in your prayers: “If the Lord does not build it, in vain do the builders labor…”

Enhanced Parish Facilities:

After nine months of prayer and parish-wide discussion, the members of the Pastoral Council, the School Advisory Council, and the Finance Council unanimously recommended moving forward with a capital campaign for enhanced parish facilities.

This news was greeted in church by applause--a good sign that people are ready to support this project after a decade of dreaming about it. Registered parishioners should have received an informational letter but the campaign logistics won't begin until January and the three-year pledge cycle sometime shortly afterwards. If all goes well, we would hope to break ground on the addition in June 2020.

A frequently asked question has been about Chesterton Academy as the idea of a potential collaboration was a late addition to our brainstorming. Their board has discerned a different direction so they won't be a part of our project.

New Personnel:

A second round of applause greeted the news that decades after nuns left our parish, we will see the return of sisters to Holy Family! The Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus  are a recently formed group of sisters based in New Ulm. They will be sending sisters to our parish starting in the Fall of 2020.
 
What will the sisters do? It remains to be seen who will be sent and what skills they will have as we are still a year and a half away from their arrival. The sisters will work in both church and school. What is clear from our side is that we would never replace any of our current staff just to make room for a sister. If there is a staff opening at that time, we would certainly see if a qualified sister is available. There are plenty of things to be done here without replacing anyone: creating a sort of campus ministry at HFA, parish youth group and young adult ministry, etc.
 
Where will the sisters live? The St. Joseph campus of St. Gabriel parish in Hopkins has an abandoned convent with 18 bedrooms. Structurally it is in good shape but internally it is a bit of a disaster. We will use the coming year to restore it as the future home of the sisters. They preferred it instead of a house near Holy Family as it is already designed as a convent (with chapel, etc.) and they see becoming their main base in the Twin Cities. As God has blessed them with many vocations, they intend to fill it with sisters! Some sisters will work in Hopkins and in other apostolates or undertake further studies--we can't be greedy and have them all at Holy Family!

Please join me in thanking God for the many ways He is blessing our parish. There is much work for us to do to cooperate with these blessings—so let’s get started!

-Fr. Joseph Johnson"

It is clear that our current facilities do not provide adequate space for parish or school activities.
 
An expansion could allow space for:

• more parish meeting rooms
• a parish library
• more classrooms for Holy Family Academy
• a large multi-purpose space which would function as gym, auditorium, theater, and event space for parish festival, Spring Dinner, etc.

Please pray for the Holy Spirit's guidance with this project!

Come Holy Spirit!

Enlighten our minds and hearts as we seek Your wisdom
to guide our efforts for the future of our parish.
Make us grateful for the sacrifices of those who came before us
and whose legacy of faith we have inherited.
Inspire us with ways to strengthen our future
as a witness of the Gospel in the Twin Cities
and Your instrument for the formation
of the next generation of Christians.
May the Holy Family of Nazareth be our model
and may we always live united in charity
with Jesus at the center of our lives.

Amen.