PODZIĘKOWANIA
NOTES OF APPRECIATION

For our parish, this has been a year of perseverance. During this year, we faced another lockdown in the spring and restrictions throughout the year. The larger Church across Canada and worldwide also faced some important soul-searching and atonement.

Thank you for all the prayers and determination and goodwill.

We have not seen some of our fellow parishioners for a long time. But we have tried to remain in touch with everyone – through bulletins, deliveries, sometimes through cards, blessed Easter baskets and more.

As a community, we have tried to help others and serve our neighbours. We also tried hard to keep up our beautiful spiritual and Polish cultural traditions.

The Rada would like to sincerely acknowledge everyone for your support, generosity, friendship and kindness.

Even when we could not gather in person, we gathered on-line for various events – like our on-line Jaselka Christmas pageant in January, on-line Ash Wednesday prayers, and the May 3rd gathering that was hosted by the St. Michael’s Polish Benefit Society.

This year, we also organized, as lay parishioners with Father Dennis’s blessing, a spiritual and very meaningful Good Friday liturgy, with the traditional Polish Gorzkie Zale, which we were able to do even though a priest could not be present. Thank you to everyone who had a role in that.

Despite the shutdown and restrictions, the bulletin kept going out every week in order to keep everyone informed. The bulletin is sent by e-mail to everyone on our parish e-mail contact list. It is also sent by regular mail each week to parishioners who are not on e-mail, usually with a little handwritten note of greeting.

Although the pandemic has affected our schedule and attendance, the parish is financially healthy. Weekly givings have remained healthy. Fellow parishioners have often been mailing in donations, and we are very grateful for that. A financial report will be provided.

This year, we had the second annual Nova Scotia Polish Heritage Month. There were activities almost every day in September – a mixture of on-line and in person. We made new friends and contacts in the broader community. Our parish played an important role in Polish Heritage Month: Activities included food, song-writing, art, cuisine, film screenings, and various workshops. On Saturday, November 20, there will be a thank-you gathering to say “dziekujemy.”

Thank you to all who make the Eucharist and Mass meaningful: To Father Dennis, to our choir and organist for easing back into singing, to our readers, to our Altar Society and all who prepare for Mass.

Thank you as well to our committees, including our Finance Committee and Endowment Trustees, and of course our Rada. Thank you for working well together.

Appreciation is extended to our property volunteers for keeping the grounds in beautiful shape. We are also pleased to have a partnership with Pathways, which is a charity in our community that works with people living with mental illness. They helped with our food garden and really appreciated the opportunity.

The Rada and the Endowment Trustees had a very important discussion this year:

As you will hear shortly, our endowment investments yielded a very healthy return on investment.

We used a part of the annual return on investment to create a budget line called “Christian Service and Outreach.” With the help of a committee, we researched community needs in the context of Pope Francis’s call to “go to the margins” and help address urgent needs. We then partnered with the Whitney Pier Youth Club to help pay for food for families and young people in need. We also partnered with Howard House to help provide basic necessities to their residents who are making a transition back into the community.

Plus, our parish was one of the founding supporters to allow the Father Greg MacLeod House to get started this year. It is an ecumenical home for Christian students at CBU, primarily international students, who have agreed to serve the community while studying. The home would not have opened this year if not for our parish. Again, there will be more information on this in the Finance and Endowment reports.

We are also very grateful for the contributions that so many of us make to the Food Cupboard – including all the non-perishable and personal care items.

As the pandemic hopefully comes to an end soon, we will discuss as a Rada and as a parish how to do more outreach, grow our community. We will need to reflect on how to bring people back to church and continue to provide caring spiritual leadership.

We should also mention that Wednesday Masses and the Novena to Our Lady of Czestochowa will be back for Advent. This will be at 6:30pm starting the first Wednesday of December. Everyone is encouraged to take part. They will continue if there is interest.

Thank you, fellow parishioners, for being the heart and soul of our parish. Please continue to pray, to reach out, to invite others, and to continue to help make everyone feel welcome at St. Mary’s Polish Church.

Financial updates were also presented and discussed at the Annual General Meeting of the Parish.