Happy Feast of St. Patrick!

Did you know that St. Francis de Sales church has some Irish roots? 

In 1842 the first Catholic parish of Lake Geneva was established with 33 families by Fr. Martin Kundig.  It was then called “St. Martins” and almost all of the original parishioners were Irish Catholics living in Irish Woods.  At that time there was only a rectory and Mass was said on the second floor of that building.   Around 1852 first church was built and the name was changed to St. Francis de Sales.  This church building was to the east of where our church now stands.  In 1889, with Fr. Eugene Reilly as the pastor, the cornerstone for our present church building was laid and construction began.

Completed in 1892, our present day church is of a modified gothic style.  Beautiful stained glass windows and oil paintings of the Stations of the Cross were gifts from parishioners.  Summer resident PJ Healy of Lyon and Healy Music Company in Chicago donated the organ.

The builder and architect of our church was William Brady.  He was born in 1841 in Dublin, Ireland and married Mary Curran.  He died in February, 1892, just 6 months before the church was dedicated that same year on August 7. He is buried in the St. Francis de Sales cemetery.

The next meeting of the Project 2017 Renovation Committee is Monday, March 21 at 7 p.m.  These are open meetings and all parishioners are invited to attend.

Help Preserve History!

While making plans for the future of St. Francis de Sales church, the Project 2017 committee has been researching the past by studying vintage photos. Part of the church renovation goals involve bringing back some of the building's original architectural features.  Built in 1892, the building has gone through several different remodeling phases.  If you have photos, old bulletins, postcards, wedding pictures, news articles, etc. that you would like to share we would love to see them.  We are using these things to inspire some of the design portions of our current project.  We are also starting to create a collection that we hope to have on display next year for the 175th (!) celebration of the existence of St. Francis de Sales Parish.  If you want to keep your treasures, we can borrow and scan them to make a copy.  Please contact Martha Cucco, stewardship@sfdslg.org to arrange to drop off any historical items.

The next meeting for Project 2017 will be on Monday, March 21 at 7 p.m.  These are open meetings and all parishioners are welcome to attend.

Fundraising Information

St. Francis de Sales Parish is very fortunate to partner with Walsh and Associates, a professional fundraising group out of Minneapolis/St. Paul.  They work exclusively with churches on capital campaigns and have a highly successful track record of raising money and exceeding goals.  Here is a link to their website:  http://www.walshfundraising.com/  Our SFDS team has already been working with them for a few months to lay the groundwork and make sure that all of our systems will work with their systems.  We will be hiring a capital campaign secretary to do all of the tracking and logging of donations.  This is a temporary position that will run the length of the campaign and will make sure not to overburden our current staff with their very busy schedules.

Our capital campaign will kick off on Memorial Day weekend and will run throughout the summer.  Our goal is $1,000,000 with a miracle goal of $1,500,000.  We are working now with our designer and contractors to firm up pricing and plans.  Our parish requires 3 bids on all expenditures so we are gathering all of that information.  We will have renderings and drawings available for you to see at the kickoff, with some "sneak peeks" coming soon.  Watch this blog for the most up to date information as this is a very exciting time for our parish!

Our next meeting is this Monday, March 7 at 7 p.m.  These are open meetings and all parishioners are invited to attend.