End of Year Pastor’s Report

We said goodbye to the Old and welcomed the New Year with prayer and gratitude three weeks ago. I believe it is a good moment now to look back and reflect on everything that happened in our parish community in the past year. I am convinced that 2023 was a good year for us at St. Martin of Tours. We must say “thank you” to God and to you dear parishioners for making it a successful and rewarding year. We had great plans and expectations, however not everything was possible to complete and achieve. At the end of the year, we are satisfied and grateful to God for the progress and growth.

I wanted to keep you informed with some numbers, new ministries, and explain our victories and challenges we encountered during the past year from my own perspective.

New Members and Ministries

First of all, I wanted to express my gratitude to the parish Staff, members of the Councils, many volunteers and those who minister in our community for their hard work, advice and willingness to serve at St. Martin of Tours. We have new trustees and a few new members on the Councils. Also, we gained two Staff members, Jenny Drzewiecki and Bro. Andy Gancarczyk. Both brought a lot of quality and substantial changes in our administrative work. I hope you noticed some improvement in communication, media ministry, and coordination of various ministries the last few months. Because of them we were able to begin a few new ministries like Family and Youth. Next steps are to strengthen these ministries and find even more ways to reach our young families and youth. We want to listen to them and build a future vision together. These are our priorities for this year.

Our stewardship and hospitality committees have grown and worked very hard by inviting and welcoming new members to our parish community resulting in growing new members and making every effort to be a welcoming church to the entire Franklin area. I learned a few days ago our Food Pantry was able to reach out and help many more people this year.

We are proud of this ministry.

Our first purpose as a religious community is to pray and worship. We had a meaningful and beautiful celebration of Easter, our patron feast St. Martin of Tours and Christmas. I was encouraged by your involvement, help and large participation. I am glad we have more opportunities and occasions to pray and organize social gatherings at St. Martin of Tours. We are committed to continuing these events and celebrations that strengthen us as one community of brothers and sisters in Christ. The social gatherings, hospitality, food and fellowship encourage people to come to church and join our religious community.

I also believe the Vietnamese community feels more at home at St. Martin of Tours and is growing in numbers. We will continue to make an effort to bring both our communities (Vietnamese and English) closer to each other in prayer and worship as well as social events with respect of course to our cultural difference.

The Vision Mission and Our Strategic Plan

I am glad we completed the Vision and Mission statement the end of the past year. This statement will enable us to create a 5-year strategic plan and will lead us in setting goals for our parish. We want to be a vibrant and growing community, listen to each other and reach those in need in the parish as well as in the larger community.

I am grateful to the Building committee for their discernment to maintain and keep in use the school buildings for at least the next five years. This decision gives us hope and possibility to welcome various groups and ministries to our large facilities. We are blessed to have enough space to function and welcome others. If we are serious about growing, we need the school building and space to welcome new ideas, ministries and groups. The 5-year strategic plan must include all of these.

Helpful Numbers

At this moment we are a community of 913 active families (2260 members). We welcomed 31 new families who joined our parish in 2023. We lost 29 of our members who died and 33 families who left or moved away. Sacraments in 2023 were: 24 baptisms (including two adults); 23 children received First Communion and 22 first reconciliation. We had just one sacrament of marriage. We provided catechism classes to 85 elementary children in the English and Vietnamese communities, and 24 in high school. We welcomed Catholic Schoolhouse group with 77 children that use our facilities weekly. In short, we are alive and there are signs of growth. I am grateful to Diane Winkowski for providing this information for us.

Difficulties and Challenges

Not everything was good and some of our initiatives and plans were not completed. Our community is getting older. Thus, inviting and welcoming young families and youth will be always a challenge. It is necessary to keep growing not just in number but also in spirituality. Another challenging mission is to find and train new volunteers to continue our long traditions, ministries and activities. Since we cannot reopen the school in the near future the maintenance of our buildings will be always a burden and matter of discernment. These are challenges we have to face but there are many other reasons to be satisfied and grateful to God as we are entering the New Year 2024.

Our Achievements and Victories

The Love One Another campaign was very successful. We were able to surpass the expectation assigned to us. We collected 105% of our goal and over 30% of our families took part in this campaign. It is a great result. We will receive over $660,000 over five years to invest/improve our facilities and upgrade technology in the parish office, school, and church. Thank you for your generosity.

We are stable financially and we are not carrying a debt. Contrary, the collections were larger in the past year but various fundraising activities gave us additional income which is being managed by our Investment committee. There are many needs and plenty of upkeep developments we have to encounter within the next five years, but I believe we are doing well. We are expecting the annual finance report with many details soon. I am grateful to our Finance Council and Investment committee for being good stewards of our money and for their professional work.

We were able to accomplish a few maintenance projects in 2023, which you probably noticed: Columbarium in the cemetery ($98,251); repair of the school roof ($25,000); replacement of the school doors ($10,700); landscaping around the church and office building ($3,000); playground for children ($15,000); patching asphalt on the road behind the school and parking lot near the cemetery ($18,540); replacement of bathroom stalls ($6,070); tuck-point work in a few places on our buildings ($4,630). We also began replacement of the heating and cooling units on the church and gym buildings. The five new units will cost us $137,180 and hopefully will last more than twenty years. Additionally, we must upgrade the internet and technology at the office, school, and church ($32,000). Both of the latter projects will be paid with money from Love One Another Campaign. Another major project we have to undertake this coming year is the road between the school and cemetery. We have many leaks in the kitchen and parish hall, and we have to fix the problem and improve the road as soon as weather permits. (Thank you to Denise Groniger for providing these numbers for us).

Thus, I am confident, this year will be another busy and successful year. I believe we will continue to grow in number but also in spirit. We will become an even more vibrant and growing community reaching out to those in need in the parish and larger community.



Lastly, thank you for your prayers and support. I appreciate your comments and encouraging words but also your suggestions for improvements. Please do not hesitate to give me your feedback and thoughts not just about this report but also about our parish life. Our effort as parish Staff and administration makes only sense with your willingness to collaborate and your care. I am blessed and proud to be your pastor.

Fr. Andrzej