Dear Parishioners,
The Second Annual Fall Festival, the Rummage Sale, The Quarter Auction, and the Boutique, together, for school operations, brought in a net profit of just under 40,000.00!
I am very grateful for all the HARD WORK behind the scenes and all throughout these events of so many volunteers. I want you to know it takes many people to execute these fundraising events. Our volunteers are AWESOME!
Sue Dunbar was the woman behind the entire Fall Festival who has put in countless hours and many sleepless nights to make this an enjoyable event for the community, and raise money for our school. She has volunteered her time and talent while working a full time job and she worked on the festival every day in her spare time with a smile.
Tana Ruester worked with Sue being a co-chair of the festival and working with teachers, school parents. She also helped enormously in the food tent all weekend.
Events like these need “tech support” and Jessica Weisensell operated our social media and bid pal and helped all weekend.
These events all needed a BANKER and I am grateful to Cali Corbett for running all of our money operations.
Melinda McIlroy took care of the very successful silent auction which is a HUGE PROJECT in collecting all the items, recording the values, taking the pictures for bid pal, tracking down the winners, and making sure all are thanked for their donations. She likewise coordinated other volunteers to assist in the very successful part of the Fall Festival.
Even those in our parish office I am so grateful for, like Jeff Andrea, Bill Andrea, Julie Bowling, Barb Riggins, and Dennis Smith for all of their behind the scenes efforts to make this festival possible.
I am thankful for Don Garner who helped us in hosting the wonderful craft mart; Debbie Garner for creating all of the games for the kids to enjoy; Aaron Troyer for the lucky numbers basket raffle and along with David Dunbar the 50/50 raffle; Jon Seabolt for organizing all of the adult games; Trisha Burris for the student art auction and the scarecrow auction; and for Mimi and Jeff Bergoff for our pre-event fundraising and beer tent.
Thank you to Laura Karam who created and crafted the beautiful mother’s tent as a 50’s diner and Julia Norton for all of her support in the mother’s tent as well. Julia also created a votive stand area to The Blessed Mother for festival visitors to petition the Blessed Mother for any need.
During the Festival, with the support of Kathy Friess, the PAG were available to sell some wonderful IHM merchandise. Thank you PAG and Mrs. Friess!
Lots of gratitude goes to Joel Garvin along with Ryan and Charles from the staging company, for setting up our stage and equipping us with sound all weekend and orchestrating all the different musical performers and the Mass.
FOOD is always important and GOOD FOOD is essential. We are all grateful to Jon Hamad from Hamad’s on Main and all his volunteers for all he did for our terrific food and beverages all weekend. The French Coffee Shop chicken sandwiches were GREAT!!!
Thanks also goes to a hard working behind the scenes volunteer, Dayna Dunbar, who facilitated the craft mart, the carnival games, the volunteers, and anything else that needed done during the weekend!
The Boy Scouts ran a corn hole and gaga tournament. Thank you to them!
An outstanding job, because they were outside standing all weekend long goes to the many Knights of Columbus men for running our parking lot traffic! Thank you to Guys Pizza for delivering pizza when necessary.
Kara Shadeed STOOD the whole weekend in the CAR RAFFLE BOOTH selling tickets and getting everyone excited to WIN BIG! Thank you, Kara!
Jacob LaGuardia was available for all our maintenance needs and safety. Many thanks for this tireless individual always with a HUGE smile.
There was, beforehand, a lot of construction help building the carnival and adult games booths! With the help of many volunteers Josh Flory and Robert Dedinksy coordinated this effort. Great job guys!
So these were the over 40 volunteers that coordinated these important “parts” of the Fall Festival, together with the Quarter Auction, Boutique, and Rummage Sale that took place this past spring to help IHM school operations which become a financial assistance for school families and their tuition. These volunteers each worked with so many other parishioners who stepped up to do whatever was needed at getting these events off the ground.
Jesus said ASK AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE and YOU parishioners were outstanding in volunteering. You were over 200 volunteers for the big weekend! That’s amazing and I am so thankful to you for your response to this!
Many blessings,
Father Jim