One of the challenges we face as we continue to discern how God is forming us as a community of faith is the upkeep of our campus. At this point in our life, we still feel that the best place for our church to continue to thrive is housed here in the beautiful campus we now call our own. While we have had offers to sell our facility to other churches, our leadership believes that it holds great potential for us positively impacting our community.

However, the maintenance and upkeep of our campus comes at a great cost. In fact, routine maintenance, utilities, and property insurance make up the most significant expense of our budget. And, unfortunately, we are not able to budget for unexpected repairs. Actually “unexpected” is not quite accurate. With facilities the age of ours, major repairs and improvements should be expected. However, since we have not been able to include these in our budget for many years, any major repairs have usually been paid for out of monies out of our endowment and many needed improvements to our facility have not even been considered. This year alone, we have spent over $6,000 to repair the air conditioning in the sanctuary and over $1500 to repair leaks in the office roof.

We are pleased to inform you that a member of our church, observing this challenge, has stepped forward to provide some assistance. This person has offered $25,000 toward campus repair to be matched by other members and friends of our church. This provides us with the opportunity to raise $50,000 to be used toward the maintenance and improvement of our campus.

One of the ways this fund will be used is to place a new roof on the church office to eliminate the need for patches after many of our rainstorms. Other uses may include air conditioning repairs, landscape improvements, and facility upgrades. Having this fund from which to draw will relieve the burden placed on our general fund and endowment fund when major repairs are needed.

Please consider how you might be able to participate in this opportunity to ensure that our campus continues to provide a worthy home for the work that God is doing in our midst here at First Congregational. And remember, every dollar you give will be matched. So your gift of $10 means $20 and your gift of $2,500 means $5,000 will be made available for the continued maintenance of our campus and buildings.

Thank you in advance for how you will be a part of this great moment in the life of our church!