On Our Journey

For the past two years and more we have undergone a number of changes and moves, all part of a transition into a single parish. Let me say, at the outset, that I am very grateful to everyone in our parish family for being as understanding and accepting as you have been through it all. I am also very happy to say that we're getting close to the end of the moves and changes that have been part of this transition.

The first major change you will see within the next couple of weeks will be our first festival held on the grounds at Ss. Peter & Paul Church. The festival committee has been hard at work and planning very carefully to make the festival a successful event at our Eastside campus. Just to give you a glimpse at one of the aspects involved; sound. With St. Joseph's Hospital and the Chemung Nursing Facility so close by we have had to take into consideration the noise being careful not to disturb patients or residents in these two facilities. You probably never thought about that right?

To facilitate storage for all the festival equipment, and there's a lot of it, a new storage facility will soon appear on the grounds at Ss. Peter & Paul right next to the Parish Center. A new plan for the layout of the festival has been prepared and it should all help to make our festival run smoothly. We've also modified the hours of the festival. On Saturday they will remain the same, 5 PM to 9PM. On Sunday the new hours will be from noon until 6PM.

Our Faith Formation Programs will all be located at Ss. Peter & Paul beginning this fall. On Sunday, September 14th the first day of classes will be held. We have made some modification inside the former parish offices on High Street by enlarging a few rooms for adequate sized classrooms. This work is in its completion phase and will be done by the start of classes.

One other move will be taking place very soon, namely, the Parish Food Pantry, that has been located at 610 Park Place for many years. The building there (the brown house next to the parish offices) is rather old and is not in good shape. In September we will be moving the Food Pantry from that site and putting it at Ss. Peter & Paul in the former office building. This means we are going to need additional storage space for all the food. Because of this we will be using the garage behind the office building for this storage, while some things will be stored in the basement of the office building. Since the garage will be used for the food storage we will not have space for storing items for the Nicaragua missions. So,for at least the first year we will not be able to participate in that mission project. An evaluation will be made after a year to see how things are going.

Finally, back on Park Place, the former site of the Food Pantry will be demolished and hopefully in 2009, the parking space at St. Patrick's will be enlarged.

Let me go back to my opening thoughts. All that has gone on over these past few years has taken a lot of planning and hard work. Most of all it has meant a lot of acceptance and understanding on the part of parishioners, especially those involved in various ministries of the parish. We all know that change is not easy. You have all been very understanding and for this I am very grateful.

Fr. Walt

Gas Card Raffle

Tickets are available for the ‘Gas Card Raffle’ we are holding in connection with our annual festival. You may get them in the parish office during regular business hours. The tickets are $2.00 each or 3 for $5.00. The prizes are two $200.00 Gas Cards that will be awarded at the end of the parish festival.

These tickets are available today after Mass and will be available next week also.

General Raffle Update

To date $4,037.00 in returns have been made in the General Raffle for our parish festival . Keep the returns coming in.