A Helping Hand

Friends, peace be with you.

One of my weaknesses is that I don’t seem to be able to remember a person’s occupation and I very rarely ask about it when I’m talking with people. Part of the reason for this is that I’m bad at small talk and part of it has to do with fear of asking for information that I’ve previously received. If someone already told me they’re the surgeon general and I ask a second time, it starts to feel like I just don’t care enough to remember. However, it’s important information because, as a parish, we want to support the businesses for which our parishioners work. If we are going to have to spend money on a repair, upgrade, or new product, we want to work with people we know have a vested interest in doing it well for the best price possible. In the past, we chose companies who supported the parish bulletin and we still try to do that. However, I’m sure there are plenty of you who work for places that choose not to and/or who can’t afford to buy an ad on the bulletin. But you as an individual may still support the parish in other ways with your time, talent, and treasure and it would be good for the parish to reach out to you when we can help each other in a project.

I’m going to try to remedy this. If you are in an occupation that could be of service to the parish and you’d like to be contacted when we need your services, please send me an email ([email protected]) or give me a call (319-362-7966) and let me know. Even if you can’t imagine how St. Patrick’s would use your services or if you’ve heard that we always use your competitors, please let me know. I’m not saying we will for sure use your services but at least we know we have people to turn to. To be frank, part of the reason for this has to do with the fact that we’ve had a bit of a turnover in staff in the past few months and the people “in the know” may not work here anymore. Plus, businesses sometimes close or restructure and we may find that we need to go with other companies. I’ve also had instances where we’ve found out the people we were using had no connection to the parish or the Catholic Church and, when we switched, suddenly our service was much more reliable. Personally, it would be helpful as I separate a Buildings and Grounds Committee from the Finance Council, to know some of the builders and craftspeople in the parish as well as some business people.