As you can see there’s construction occurring on John R…good news and bad news. While we all welcome the orange barrels and the fixing up of a road that badly needs it, we all know it means detours, traffic backups, dust, and heaven forbid…short tempers. We’ve been in contact with the city and they will always have at least ½ the driveway open for access to and from St. Anastasia. But we ask your cooperation, patience, and courtesy especially during Religious Education nights…remember, kids don’t learn by osmosis, they learn by example.
We’ve completed the first quarter of the new fiscal year and we are still a bit behind on the Sunday collections. We keep a close eye on the funds coming in to ensure that we make our spending decisions based on what is coming in, not on what we want to come in. We take great care in preparing a budget, but as most of you can identify with in your own household budgets, a budget is your best guess on what is going to happen. It would be foolish and irresponsible to keep spending at budgeted levels when the income budgeted for is down. We were able to make a $50,000 payment against our loan; the normal quarterly payment would be $41,000 so the “extra” $9,000 will go directly against the principle. We’ll do this whenever we can as we’d like to get the loan paid off as soon as possible to free up the funds for our own use right here in the parish.
We’ve completed our first Emergency Response Plan thanks to Fire Chief Andy Bezenah, a parishioner who also has kids in the Religious Education Program. The plan covers fire, weather emergencies, medical emergencies, bomb threat, gas leaks, downed electrical lines, earthquake, civil unrest, terrorism, and flash flood. We also agreed to a mutual aid program with Costello Elementary School at the end of Hammond Street. Should we ever have to evacuate the site during Religious Education nights, Costello School will open its doors as a safe haven for our kids and catechists; it will serve as the point where you pick up your children. The reciprocal is that if Costello ever has to evacuate during the school day, we will open our doors to the kids and staff and act a safe haven and a pick up point for their kids. We’d like to thank Costello Principal, Mr. Gary Wood for his cooperation and enthusiasm in preparing the plan…this is just another example of the community working together for the protection of our children, our greatest and most precious asset.
There will be copies of the emergency response plan kept in very easy to spot conspicuous red binders in the Davidson Center Kitchen, Athletic Office, Religious Education Office, Parish Office, and the Church Sacristy. If you see Fire Chief Andy, give him a resounding “Thank You”…we could have never done this without him.
God bless, Franz
