Joe Casazza has been a parishioner of St. Lawrence’s Roman Catholic Church in Weehawken for the past 23 years, eventually becoming one of the most active members of the parish community. Casazza has helped to organize the parish picnic, has served on the parish council and has been the chairman of the parish’s contribution to the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal.
“I always get involved, because I take a lot of pride in the parish,” Casazza said. “I feel like we’re a family.”
George Klink, a member of the St. Lawrence community for 18 years, has similar sentiments and an equal amount of pride.
“We’ve seen the parish grow a lot in recent years,” Klink said. “I think we’re all dedicated to do whatever we can for the parish.”
If there has been one gaping absence in the community over the years, it has been the lack of a true parish community center.
“We’ve gone all over the place to hold functions,” Casazza said. “We’ve gone to St. Anne’s in Hoboken or up to the Weehawken Elks, if it’s available. It’s really been tough to operate that way.”
“I think we all sort of got used to it,” Klink said. “We kind of adapted to it. But it has become more glaringly aware that we could be doing so much more if we had a place of our own. It became evident that we needed a place with space and room.”
Ever since Father Bob Emery became the pastor of St. Lawrence’s nearly two years ago, there has been talk of building a new parish center. It all depended upon if the money could be raised and as long as the Archdiocese of Newark, the governing body for all local Catholic parishes, would approve it.
“Over the past two years, the parish has grown in numbers almost 20 percent, to 1,200 families,” Emery said. “And we made a push in terms of ministries, called stewardships, to share our time, our talents and our treasures to give back to the community. Stewardship is a Biblical concept from the Old Testament. We all want to be good stewards. We were able to turn our parish around drastically since 1999 and people have responded by giving the parish new life.”
Added Emery, “We now have more people involved more than ever. We have about a dozen new ministries active, but we don’t have the meeting space to accommodate everyone. The rectory has one meeting room in the basement and the church is not conducive to meetings.”
There is also the need for classroom space, since the parish’s religious education classes now service 140 students.
Fund raisers
But apparently, the lack of space is about to change.
This weekend, the parish will launch its fund raising capital campaign, hoping to raise the necessary $750,000 in order to build a new parish center. The new building will provide space for religious education, youth ministry, parish meetings and a variety of parish activities. The Parish Center will include a large multi-purpose area that will seat 200 people for social functions and four multi-purpose classrooms/meeting rooms.
Emery realizes that it’s a tremendous undertaking, asking a tiny parish to raise three quarters of a million dollars.
“We understand that we have a blue-collar working class community,” Emery said. “But we’re asking our parishioners to make the necessary sacrifices for the good of the parish. We’re asking them to pledge over a three-year period, but we don’t need to have all the pledges in hand in order to get approval for the project.” Added Emery, “People in the parish have expressed concerns that it is a lot of money to be raised, but I’m optimistic and completely confident that our parishioners will reach the goal.”
To date, the parish has already received gifts of over $150,000 from just fifteen families within the parish. The parish has retained the services of Lynch Development Associates of Huntington, New York. This firm specializes in conducting capital appeals for Catholic Churches and schools. The firm boasts a 100 percent success rate with these types of campaigns over the past five years.
The campaign began with a brief reception phase and will be followed by a six-week visitation phase in which parish volunteers will personally visit one another to gain the support of every family in the parish. “We had a series of meetings with parishioners to talk about the project,” Emery said. “After we introduced the plan to them, they were willing to support it. The enthusiasm was overwhelming. We had people call the next day to make their pledges, because they were so thrilled to finally see this happen.”
The fund-raising capital campaign will continue for the next 10 weeks. Casazza and Klink are the co-chairmen of the campaign.
“I’m very excited,” Klink said. “It’s a big step for the parish and it’s a step that needed to be taken. I’m also excited by the enthusiasm of the parishioners. The response has been wonderful. I can see in their faces. They all know that this was a blatant need. The time had come for the parish to take this step. We examined other opportunities and there was only one way to do it and that was to do it ourselves. The answer was obvious.”
Casazza agreed.
“We really had no place to go,” Casazza said. “I’m very optimistic about this project. The people in this parish have always come together. This is what we needed.”
Emery said that it will be an intense effort to reach the pledge goal.
“We have the visits and the mailings,” Emery said. “We expect the campaign to formally close around Easter. The name of the campaign is called, ‘Embracing the Future,’ because that’s basically what the campaign is for. It’s not just for today, but for the future, for generations to come. This center will still be serving the parish for years to come.”
The feasibility study has already been completed and an architectural firm, KNTM Architects of Ocean Township, has designed a site plan for the project. The plan will be turned over to Archdiocesan officials for approval.
“We have tentative approval, but officially, it has to go out to bid,” Emery said. “We hope to start building in February of next year and be completed by September of next year.”
Emery said that he is beginning to feel excited now that his dream is about to become a reality.
“It helps to make it all seem more real,” Emery said. “I have some massive anxiety, because it is such a tremendous undertaking. But I’m excited as well. It’s a great time for our parish.”
All inquiries in reference to the St. Lawrence Parish Center Campaign should be directed to the campaign office at (201) 863-6464.