Small church, big success

Karen Walker is a one-person army at St. Thomas the Apostle in Cherry Valley.

Walker is the parish life and faith formation coordinator for the church and interim administrator at St. Mary’s in Cooperstown. And, oh by the way, in her spare time, Walker ran the Re-Igniting Our Faith (ROF) campaign for the parish located in Otsego County, about 21 miles northeast of Cooperstown. 

“We are a small, rural parish and we were very poor for a very long time and so we had a lot of needs, especially our buildings,” Walker said. “We have been very fortunate to have survived “Called to be Church” (which closed and consolidated churches in the area) and a few other things, but it still was always difficult to pay our bills.”

Focusing on the obvious needs while reaffirming the parish’s mission statement became the crux of the church’s ROF campaign.  Under difficult circumstances — Cherry Valley has no parish priest and an aging population — Walker and the committee were able to raise 81 percent of the church’s stated goal during the active phase of the campaign which ended in February and has continued to take in money. Walker said since the church spent such time crafting its mission statement, it seemed natural to use it to state its case in the ROF campaign.

“Rather than rehash the closing of a couple of our mission churches, we didn’t want to do that,” Walker said. “We focused on what we identified as our mission statement. So that was our opening case; this is what we said we are, and this is what we want to be, and then we went on to our current needs.”

The needs at the parish were obvious. There is black mold in the rectory house, asbestos tiles in the church which need to be replaced, as well as the carpeting. The church also built an addition —after being left some money — for sacramental space and restrooms, and that area needs finished where the old church meets the new church. The front steps were also in need of repair, but were fixed by a parishioner. The church has already received estimates for the needed renovations and hopes to start work in 2020.

“Those are probably the biggest things they we would not be able to do without having something like this,” Walker said, “Or we would be able to do it in a lot longer time frame.”

The church had coffee hours after both Sunday Masses to roll out the campaign and talk with the parishioners.

“Because we have a senior population, and they don’t know where they are going to be in five years, numerous people paid the majority up front,” Walker said. “They didn’t want to commit themselves to three to five years. …

“Some people let it slip their mind and got real surprised when they got their notices, so we had to go over it again (and say) ‘This is what you signed up for and what it is for’ and they said ‘Oh, yeah, I remember now.’ ”

The campaign, Walker adds, wasn’t immune to skepticism, however, but in the end was a success.  

“In the beginning … they were so anti-another collection,” she said. “But once it finally settled down after the first wave and we were told this is set up as a foundation, this is a best effort and not an assessment — that would be a terrible burden on the parish — the  attitude changed, my attitude changed, the people’s attitude changed.”

Daisy Ford, a widowed parishioner, agreed.

“I couldn’t give as much as I would have liked to  but the idea is good, especially since we don’t have to meet the goal in order for the parish to receive a portion,” Ford said. “I give what I can and go from there and it’s painless for Karen since she doesn’t have to keep asking for money for all these projects.”