Each year, the Spirit of St. Francis award is presented to a parishioner who has given outstanding service to the parish. It is with great pleasure that I announce the winner of this year’s Spirit of St. Francis Award is Patrick Gallagher.
Despite only joining the parish in 2021, Pat Gallagher quickly became an integral part of the largest project at St. Francis in over a decade. The right person at the right time he came forward and jumped right into the renovation project lending his talents for bidding, managing and budgeting. He met all the requirements that were asked of him and did it within budget, which due to rising costs and inflation was not an easy task. He was onsite at the church meeting with contractors and church leaders at least once a week if not more. If that wasn’t enough he recently agreed to serve as ministry head for Building and Grounds to lead planning around maintenance, repair and beautification of the parish, rectory and property.
In most years, during Carnival weekend and the St Francis of Assisi feast day, we recognize the Spirit of St. Francis by identifying someone who has given so much to our parish. Like everything else this year is a little bit different and it seems appropriate, as we approach Thanksgiving, to recognize a group of people who exemplified this dedication to our parish community this year.
2020 brought a number of challenges, not the least of which was determining how to continue to worship as a community during a pandemic. This year our Spirit of St. Francis award is in recognition of the great effort and commitment to ensure that we have Mass, Eucharist, a thanksgiving, celebrated. The efforts of this groups include streaming the Mass, online registration, outside Masses under a tent and in our parking lot, the setup of our physical space in the church, and maintaining safe health protocols. It was simply not possible to only recognize once person when so many gave so much. Please join me in congratulating four people who have truly shined this year! Our 2020 recipients of the Spirit of St. Francis award:
Additionally those that work in the parish did extraordinary things that extended far beyond a job description. Administratively we could not have functioned without their dedication. Our liturgies would be incomplete and could not have been safely conducted without their gracious and ‘can do’ attitude. Our pre-school, religious ed and youth group programs all required immense protocol changes and thanks to the leadership, creativity and presence of our team these programs are all flourishing. St Francis would like to honor seven people who put others before themselves with a special St Joseph the Worker award.