Greetings Fellow CTK and St Stephen Parishioners:
We last communicated to you at the end of March when we were just starting to get used to life in the era of Covid quarantines. At that time, we were focusing on three strategies to continue our ministry in the face of the pandemic and the halting of indoor church services. These were:
1. Spiritual Nourishment. Finding ways to use technology to continue to deliver our liturgies to our sheltered parishioners. Also fixing up our outdoor space to allow us to continue our liturgies and sacraments in person that meet guidelines and restrictions for safe socially distant gatherings.
2. Sustaining our Community. Keeping our staff employed and enhancing our communications to keep our community alive as well as to continue to deliver spiritual support to our parishioners.
3. Financial Management. Focusing on efficient use of funds and good stewardship of parishioner donations.
The good news is that we have been remarkably successful in each of these strategies.
We live stream daily mass for those who are home bound. We provide outdoor masses and sacraments that allow social distancing for parishioners to participate safely in person. Our staff have been diligent in running their ministries remotely, keeping up regular communications, managing the office and cleaning up our parishioner data.
Your financial support has made the difference by making this possible. THANK YOU!!!
In March we were very worried about how long we could survive as a parish, but our prayers were answered. Our parishioners have stepped up and continued making donations at a level that is close to the level we budgeted for this year. We are also seeing large donations to our St. Vincent De Paul society who are active every day in helping the poor in our community.
Ordinarily CTK would have hosted a town hall meeting to make a presentation on parish finance, but with restrictions on gathering, we are providing this information here.
Attached, are slides that show the CTK financial position for last year, what we originally planned for 2020 and what our finances look like for the nine months ending in September.
St. Stephen parishioners have also continued to contribute generously during the pandemic with total collections approaching original budgeted amounts. This, along with the success of our hard-working volunteers in controlling operating costs, has enabled us to hold outdoor Sunday Masses and continue St Vincent DePaul and other programs, while retaining our three employees.
As a result, our net operating results through September were equal to our original budgeted results. Financial information for St. Stephen for 2019 and the first half of 2020 was communicated to our parishioners at two virtual town hall meetings in July.
We are grateful and thank God for your continued support.
If you have any questions on this information, email them to finance@ctkph.org, and someone will get back to you.
Greg Thornbury
Chairman, CTK Finance Council
John Banker
St. Stephen Finance Chairman
