Temporal Administration

Edwin A. Sevillano, MBA

Pastoral Associate for Temporal Administration, Stewardship & Outreach

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This past year has been positive and promising while nationwide recession fears must keep us vigilant. Anxiety caused by COVID19 seems to have dissipated as most restrictions have been lifted and a sense of being back to normal is widely spread. Our country and the world have entered into an economic cool down and inflation period which will bring more challenges as we plan and budget for the upcoming fiscal period. We keep the faith and remain optimistic. Our parishioners are aware and understand our increasing financial needs as we move forward. This report aims to provide the state of the Parish of Saint Mary at the end of fiscal year 20212022 and offer accountability to you our stakeholders. Let’s review the accomplishments and highlights of the fiscal year ending June 30, 2022.

Our parishioners were more active participating and volunteering for our events and celebrations in the past as they are doing at the present time. This is especially noticeable in our liturgical ministries as we continue to struggle to recruit new lectors, altar servers, ushers and others to serve our weekend masses and even at the most important celebrations in the calendar such as Christmas and Easter. We are grateful for those who have stepped up to the plate and share their time and talent with us, but the needs are continually growing and many hands make the work light. While it is understandable people are generally busy managing different aspects of their lives (home, work, schools, sports…) it is also important to devote some hours out of our already busy schedules to help out with the needs of our local parish. This is not just a responsibility of a few “die-hard” parishioners, but we are all coresponsible of keeping our parish community vibrant and alive. There are plenty of opportunities to help and for all ages. In addition to the ministries mentioned above, we are always looking for office volunteers to help at the front desk answering the phones; hall monitors during our Religious Education classes; sponsors and companions for those in the process of becoming Catholics or completing their initiation; members of committees for events and celebrations; and many others. Please feel free to contact me or any other staff members if you are interested in volunteering. Your willingness to get involved is really appreciated. Our Sunday collection remained steady for the first half of the year as a direct effect of the Offertory Recovery Program we launched in the fall of 2020. There was a slight decline in the last few months of the year with people traveling or relocating to their summer houses. By the end of the fiscal year the Sunday collection had decreased almost 3% as compared to the prior year but we were still 2% over budget. Our conservative budget for year ending June 2023 in light of the country economic slowdown is $815,000. It is important to remark that our Sunday collection funds primarily our personnel salaries and benefits, which require over $12,000 a week for the current fiscal period. The Christmas collection was our highest on record. It jumped almost $20,000 as compared

STEWARDSHIP There has been a significant decrease in giving of Time and Talent as compared to a few years ago before the pandemic.

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to Christmas 2020 with a 10% increase in parishioner participation in the same period. The Easter collection was our second highest as Easter 2021 is the record high so far. Participation increased about 2.5% which is always important. Both Christmas and Easter show a growing trend of parishioners sending in their offerings before and after the actual day of celebration, which make us proud of the level of commitment and stewardship for these important occasions in the liturgical year. The monthly Building and Mortgage Reduction collection fell almost 15% as compared to the prior year. It is important to keep in mind our financial obligations as we started paying off our mortgage principal in November 2021. Our current mortgage payments are over $95,000 per year and we just collected a little over $40,000 in our monthly collection, which is about 42% of what is needed. The support for the Poor and Needy has increased in participation among our parishioners especially in the Food collection program, the Thanksgiving food drive and new initiatives such as the Blessing Bags and Fishers of Men. Our revenues for the poor and needy fund are mostly able to cover the requests for assistance and the subsidy from our general fund has decreased over the years. The Diocesan capital campaign Faith to Move Mountains continues on the redemption stage with only 21 pledges remaining to be paid. $1,208,851 have been received by 30 June 2022 out of the total pledged of over $1.3 million. We remind and urge our parishioners to continue making your pledge payments as the parish benefits from the rebates received from the campaign. We are at the tipping point to start receiving 70% of pledges paid after satisfying our goal. The 2022 Annual Catholic Appeal launched in February with the same goal of $75,000 as in recent years. At the time of preparing this report 193 households have pledged to the ACA raising $69,970, which means we need to raise $5,030 more to secure a rebate. A total of $55,673 has already been paid to date. Based on parishioner participation last year, we are confident to exceed our goal again in the ACA 2022 and have budgeted a rebate of $15,000. It is pertinent to remind our parishioners the importance of supporting the Annual Catholic Appeal every year as it provides funding for the diocesan ministries and programs which benefit the larger church, while at the same time our parish receives a rebate when we reach our goal. We also received a special restricted donation towards replacing the Baptismal Font. Our font has been giving us so many problems recently due to mortar in its seams being dried out and failing. All attempts to repair it are not long lasting and it has become a maintenance nightmare. A couple of faithful parishioners approached our Pastor inquiring about it and decided to make a significant donation of $100,000 towards the purchase and installation of a new baptismal font. The project includes designing a one piece marble bowl and a marble stand with new plumbing, heating, recycling and sanitizing system. It is our goal to have the new font installed by Easter 2023, provided the global chain supply issues do not delay materials shipped from abroad.

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Narthex Completion –

FACILITIES

Phase II: In the fall we continued phase II of the church narthex completion pro- The following are some of the capital ject which consisted of installing projects we have completed this past stained glass in the clearstory win- fiscal year at our facilities: dows. We had already installed 2 stained glass windows in the western elevation of the narthex/gathering space when it was repainted and conditioned for the statue of the Blessed Mother. The remainder windows over the western elevation were installed in October; the southern elevation windows were installed in early December; and the northern windows were completed in January 2022. Main campus tree trimming and removal: It had

been several years since our trees had received our attention other than periodic fertilizing and pest treatment. This year something affected ash trees not just in our property but everywhere in New Jersey. Sadly we had no choice but to remove them. There were also a number of trees planted around the northern parking lot which were not appropriate for the strong winds frequently blowing in our property. Despite fertilization they had not grown and had to be removed. Conversations had started with a landscape designer to replace these trees with the proper application to not just beautify our campus but also withstand better the forces of nature.

LED lighting upgrade: As we had anticipated in prior years, we continued the work to upgrade our lighting to more efficient, energy saving and long lasting LED fixtures. This time we addressed the childcare center building from hallway link starting in Parish Hall to the hallway link to the Spiritual Center building. Based on the past work at the Spiritual Center we chose 2 ft by 2 ft flat LED lights across the board improving the illumination in classrooms, hallways and recreational areas. This project has been partially funded by the 2021 Annual Catholic Appeal rebate and the remaining by the expected rebate for the ACA 2022.

Parish house backyard: This project was continued where we left off and the end of the prior fiscal year. The remaining areas of the parish house backyard which were not finished then were covered with architectural turf and stone. The completed work has increased the property resale value as well as lowered the ever rising maintenance costs.

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OUTREACH

We resumed the direct support to the poor and needy for emergencies responding not just to cases received at St Mary but also other cases by request of our partner organizations in Monmouth and Ocean counties.

We have not reached pre-pandemic levels of direct support requests but the needs continue to grow and we can only anticipate more and more requests for emergency financial assistance. We have also continued to support the efforts of key organizations like the Catholic Charities, Collier Youth Services, Mount Carmel Guild and St Jude Hospital. The Thanksgiving Food drive hit another record of participation last year. Our parishioners continued to support the thanksgiving food collection and provided monetary donations to purchase turkeys which price per pound had increased. Scores of young volunteers participated in the sorting and packing of bags. 265 grocery bags for Thanksgiving dinner and over 63 bags of mixed groceries were distributed to the needy in our larger community. Additionally, potatoes, onions, rutabagas, and 180 turkeys were purchased and donated. The Tree of Love, Sponsor A Family and our direct Charitable Appeals were important efforts to make Christmas very special for hundreds of children and their families. Most of the requests made by our partner organization were in the form of gift cards due to chain supply issues and post pandemic precautions. Our other outreach efforts like the Fishers of Men food collection for Ash Wednesday and the Blessing Bags collection of personal hygiene items were well received and engaged entire families in participation.

COMMUNITY BUILDING EVENTS

The biggest and most important celebration of the year was the 50th Anniversary of the establishment of St Mary Parish on its current location. The date chosen was June 5, the liturgical Solemnity of Pentecost. A committee of parishioners was assembled to manage the details of the celebration: food trucks, inflatables, tents, music and volunteers. It was a beautiful spring day that started with a Solemn Mass at 3 PM celebrated by Bishop David O’Connell and concelebrated by our Pastor Fr. Jeff and a number of priests from the diocese. At the conclusion of mass, the celebration continued with a picnic on our grounds. Those who signed up and participated of the event enjoyed a wonderful time and camaraderie with other fellow parishioners. Our traditional Halloween Halls happened the last Saturday in October with many families taking care of decorating the rooms, the trick-or-

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treaters in their costumes attending 4 PM Mass and the event following. Similarly our Easter Egg Hunt returned in April on the second Sunday of Easter, bringing many families to hunt for eggs and have a good time together. We also hosted 2 successful parish grounds cleanups in the fall and spring. Again dozens of volunteer families and teens helped us rake leaves, collect brush, clean planting beds, plant flowers in the spring and tidy up our property in preparation for the major Holy Days of Christmas and Easter.

As we conclude this report, we want to continue acknowledging the participation and stewardship of our parishioners. None of the above would have been possible without YOU and the sacrifices you make to support us. We hope this new fiscal year will be positive despite inflation and concerns about a recession. Your commitment to your parish shall remain despite adversity. Our plans to continue projects in our facilities require your continued financial support. These capital projects include: the Children Play Area; Church LED lighting upgrade with seed money from Faith to Move Mountains; electric vehicle chargers in our parking lot; parish house windows replacement and upgrade; and the installation of the new baptismal font. If you are interested in knowing more about our projects and needs and how you can help us, please contact me by email at temporaladmin@stmaryscoltsneck.org or by phone at 732-780-2666 extension 312.

May God bless you all!