St. Rose of Lima Catholic Community has launched Faith In Action, a $9 million capital campaign to expand the facilities of our campus and grow the St. Rose family. This campaign will fund the construction of a 2‐story, 36,000 square foot education building. More than just adding to footprint of our community, this campaign seeks to support the unification of St. Rose to be a welcoming parish and school which is forming and educating it members, engaging participation and involvement in all areas of parish life and embracing the values of our faith as we make room for all at the table of the Lord.
Founded in 1947, St. Rose of Lima Catholic Community began with a vision of its 100 founding parishioners. That vision was of a parish home where their families could gather in worship, enjoy the fellowship of community, receive God’s grace through the sacraments, and form their children in both faith and academics. We look to our past, and those 100 founding members, as we honor our future through continuing to build on this foundation of family.
Since 2010, we have been fulfilling our mission of “making room for all at the table of the Lord through loving service” with a focus for growth of our parish children. Providing them with a nurturing day care facility, an academically strong Christ‐centered school and spiritual formation program will move us towards the next generation of parish leadership, participating and involved on a stronger and deeper level.
St. Rose of Lima Catholic Community is made up of more than 2,500 parishioner households. Education and Formation is the key to ensure that we grow as a community of lay ministers and Disciples of Christ. Our adult education programs touch the lives of nearly 700 participants annually. Enrollment at St. Rose of Lima Catholic School is currently 343 students, there are 227 children in our Early Childhood Center, and an additional 407 parish children are being formed in our CCE and Youth Ministry programs.
For the past seven years, St. Rose of Lima Catholic Community has been strategically implementing a long‐range master plan to strengthen our sense of community, address growth opportunities and better serve our mission. More than $7 million worth of construction projects has been built and paid for, including:
- Expansion of the Early Childhood Center and classrooms to meet the “bottom‐up” parish growth and community demand
- A new Pre‐K and Kindergarten school wing with open classrooms and outdoor pavilions
- Our new Parish Hall that fosters community across St. Rose of Lima Catholic Community
- Covered walkways and increased parking for school and parish
- Strategic purchases of adjacent properties to expand our ministry service and to meet future expansion needs
- The transformation of our Food Pantry into a “client choice” service center, affording more dignity to those seeking help.
With close to 1,700 members of our community engaged in education and formation outside of our regular Mass attendance, along with our 53 ministries, councils, boards actively promoting our mission, space limitations continue to be of challenges.
Facility challenges:- Classroom space for the school program is currently at capacity with two temporary classrooms being used along with additional classroom spaces being shared between subjects.
- There is no formal science lab on campus. Although equipped with excellent teachers and a conventional classroom in which to learn, the concepts of science can fall short without the experimentation and hands‐on learning that requires laboratory space.
- The current St. Rose library serves all of our students from Pre‐Kindergarten through 8th grade and with additional space allocated to our resource program. With little flexibility for alternate space layouts, the library continues to be dated and static.
- Summer Safari and VBS programming at St. Rose have both grown at significant rates, and without ample space, those programs have had to be capped and parishioners turned away or placed on waiting lists.
- Several of our ministries and organizations host formation opportunities that require break out space. Bible studies, retreats and our CCE programs suffer from a lack of spaces where assembly and break out areas are available.
St. Rose of Lima has been in a stage of perpetual growth for nearly the past 10 years, and in 2016, our leadership revisited and revamped the original 2010 Master Plan. In collaboration with a sampling of parish, school and ECC families, we conducted a feasibility study in the Fall of 2016. The results of this study highlighted that our community supports building to expand and improve our campus.
With a combined goal of meeting the needs of today while preparing for tomorrow, the core of our campaign is a 2‐story, 36,000 square foot education building. A new education building will solve not only urgent space needs, but also allow us to continue building upon a strong foundation that has resulted in enrollment increases across all education and formation programs offered at St. Rose of Lima over the past 7 years.
The New Education Building will include:- A net gain of 6 additional classroom spaces to increase enrollment in the school and parish education and formation programs. On the school side, these classrooms will hold (3) Kindergarten classes and (2) of each 1st – 8th grade classes.
- Dedicated ancillary space for Art and Music
- State‐of‐the‐art computer lab to include the latest technologically advanced learning tools.
- Language lab
- Science lab to allow for more hands‐on exploration of STEM subjects.
- Both a middle school and elementary library
- Collaborative learning environments
- Break‐out spaces for small group learning
The completion of the 2016 Master Plan outlined both short and long‐term goals for our community. At that time, the total construction cost of completing the entire vision was established at $18 million. With such an ambitious total, it was decided to be in our parish’s and school’s best interest to phase‐in the effort with strategic implementation of the goals based on need and priority.
The new education building, the primary objective for the Faith In Action Campaign, is the largest component of the overall Master Plan with a cost of $9 million. With earned income strategies put into place during Phase II of the Legacy of Faith campaign, St. Rose established revenue streams to assist in planning for the future. With the ability to sustain a portion of our construction costs through earned income, St. Rose of Lima will be seeking to fundraise $4.5 million in supplemental capital to reach our total goal and move forward into construction.
We are seeking support from the entire St. Rose of Lima Catholic Community‐ parishioners, parents, alumni and friends of St. Rose. No gift is too small, and each one is significant to reaching our goals, but success will depend upon all of us discerning our best investment in the future of our parish family.
– Henry Nouwen, A Spirituality of Fundraising