November 22, 2021DEAR FRIENDS,
Yet another Thanksgiving Day is round the corner when we celebrate the Lord’s goodness and His blessings received throughout the year. Thus, I'd like to look back with you all and see what His Providence allowed us to accomplish since last Thanksgiving: please click here or on the photo to read and see more. I will also give some updates on the upcoming fundraisers of the end of the year for the next year’s projects.
The largest project – the construction of the garage/workshop/storage building – is still far from finished. After many obstacles and much delay (two contractors left the project either on the eve or during its first sage – the excavation, and now the concrete team delaying their start until after the Thanksgiving), the hope is waning to have it finished this year. Waning but not lost! We’ll see… Nevertheless, already I particularly would like to thank an entire team of dedicated volunteers – Dan Muldoon, Dave Lowrey, Dave Wilt, Paul Glaser, and Tom Kaiser – who put so much of their time and effort into this project. We’ve also got a smaller new building – the Tools Shed – built this spring on the spot where formerly used to be a hermitage, just across from the Wellhouse. Then, the outside of almost all the smaller structures – the new Tools Shed, the “Patience” cabin, the Wellhouse, the Bathhouse, my own hermitage, and the outdoor chapel benches – were repainted and repaired: the “Patience” also got a new deck, and the Bathhouse – the new railing. Only the “Faithfulness” cabin wasn’t repainted, as hopefully in a few years a new cabin will stand in its stead. And: there are no more of these creepy old campers sitting on the property! A very special thanks for this long and tedious work goes to Tony Knepp, who spent all his summer coming almost every other day to do the job. Tony also helped with getting the last camper away. Another improvement – the new floor installed in the Dome House dining room and kitchen. Many thanks to Tuan Cao for donating it, and the crew of the Knights of Columbus from St. Thomas More parish for laying it down! I'd also like to thank warmly all those who attended the Spring and the Fall Volunteer Work Days. Thanks to these volunteers, there is now a beautiful rock wall behind my hermitage, and a good stock of firewood prepared for the winter, which I will surely greatly appreciate when all will be buried under the snow up here! Next year’s projects:
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- On the Giving Tuesday (which falls this year on November 30th) Facebook will be matching again all the donations received on that day. More information will follow in upcoming days, but there is one thing to be aware of from the outset: Facebook’s funds for matching are of some $8,000,000, and they melt away quickly: usually they are distributed by noon MT, so all the donations received later are not matched. If you are planning to support the RCH on Giving Tuesday, please do it as early as possible on that day – thus your donation will be doubled, if it comes before Facebook distributes the first $2,000,000, and matched to 10% (if you donate $10, Facebook will donate $1) for the remaining $6,000,000. They will start the distribution at 8am ET... which is 6am MT! Please already visit, like, follow and share this new RCH Facebook page. The Fundraiser will be launched on it on November 30th at 6am MT. - Another opportunity is the Colorado Gives Day, which this year happens on the following Tuesday, December 7th. If you know any local businesses who would like to support a local non-profit which the RCH is, please share with them this information. There is a $1,600,000 incentive fund set up by Community First Foundation and FirstBank: every donation made through ColoradoGives.org on Colorado Gives Day is boosted by the fund, which increases the value of every dollar. For example, if a nonprofit organization receives 10 percent of the total donations made on Colorado Gives Day, that same nonprofit receives 10 percent of the $1.6 Million Incentive Fund. Last year they raised over $50 million total… Please click on the image below to get to our Colorado Gives profile and share the link with those who may be willing to support us. You can even start your own fundraiser to the benefit of the RCH on that page – right now, it’s easy! Another, all year-round opportunity to help the RCH is shopping on AmazonSmile (you don’t need a new account, simply log into your regular Amazon account, but on smile.amazon.com): please choose the Congregation of Saint John in Littleton, CO as the recipient of the donations; 0.5% of your purchase price will go then to the RCH. Thank you so much! Lastly, please also check out our Wishlist. If you have and no longer need the tools or equipment listed there, we would be glad to put them to use! For the gifts in kind, the Donors will also get a Tax Receipt Letter. Once again, my heartfelt thanks to all of you, and most of all - to our Good Lord and His Mother! Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families, Br. Francis of the Child Jesus, Steward |
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