Parishioner helps church get onto world wide web

Back in 1997, parishioners fought to re-open their church when structural damage closed the building for a year -- and today, the parish boasts one of the most impressive websites in the Albany Diocese.

"We just had our one-year anniversary," boasted webmaster Keith Barkevich. "The site has kind of ballooned in the past year; I want it to be a top-rated site."

On-line presence

When the church re-opened, he said, he became an active parishioner again. Creating a website for the parish was "a way for myself to give back to the church, and a great way for the church to get up to speed in the new millennium."

Since he was familiar with web design, Mr. Barkevich created a site much more detailed than many parish websites. Web browsers are greeted with a photo of a sunset with "St. Casimir's Church -- Welcome -- Amsterdam, New York" superimposed on it.

From there, visitors can proceed to a host of options: learning about the parish's history, exploring Lithuanian customs, checking a calendar of events or even browsing a photo gallery of the church's circa-1908 stained-glass windows.

Visitors

Since visitors can leave messages on the site, he said, "I get letters all the time saying how much they miss" the parish.

When web browsers type "Casimir" into the Yahoo search engine, St. Casimir's parish is the first site to appear. Mr. Barkevich said that he has even received a letter from an Australian student in a monastery who'd been assigned a project on St. Casimir and was searching for pictures of the saint. He sent the student photos of the church's windows and statues featuring St. Casimir.

Digital pix

During Lent, the parish added photos of the Stations of the Cross to the site, along with meditations written by Jim Burklo, a campus minister at Stanford University in California who gave St. Casimir's permission to reprint his reflections.

"Now, people are going to the site just to do the Stations!" Mr. Barkevich enthused.

Process

A recent addition was a student essay contest. Mohawk Community Bank in Amsterdam donated three $50 gift certificates as prizes, and Mr. Barkevich donated movie tickets. Visitors to the site could read all the submitted essays and vote for their favorite.

When the polls closed, the results amazed even the webmaster. "There were something like 278 total votes," he said. "That means 278 people read through those essays! That's thrilling for me."

A website, he added, is a good way for a graying parish to reach younger parishioners. "It's an old parish," he admitted. "For this parish to survive, I think it needs to target youth. That's part of the reason the site went up."

Many hands

The site has become such a source of pride for St. Casimir's that Mr. Barkevich even did a demonstration after Mass one weekend for curious parishioners who don't own computers. Many older parishioners have also submitted historical photos of weddings and other events at the church.

"People approach me with content," Mr. Barkevich said. "I've met with the senior citizens and asked them to look through their old photos to see if they had anything to contribute, and a lot of them did."

More to come

Mr. Barkevich also hopes to add a youth section, Women's Auxiliary section and religious education section to the site.

Although he admits that the website takes a great deal of time to maintain, "it makes me feel good that I can contribute to it. I'm just thrilled to be involved with the church to that degree. This is something I feel I can get behind."

Mr. Barkevich also believes the website's success means that St. Casimir's has a promising future. "Our parish is going to endure," he stated. "This has really taken off hugely."

(St. Casimir's website is www.stcasimirs.com.)

(05-03-01) [[In-content Ad]]