Our active and prayerful Catholic Church and School is a community enabled by the Holy Spirit to embrace all people with love and understanding.  We are called to share our faith and knowledge as caring followers of Jesus Christ.  For decades, we have gathered, worshiped, learned and played with each other on our adequate parcel of real estate in northeast Indianapolis, which has become a beacon of hope and opportunity to thousands over the years.   Periodically, our founders and leaders have taken pause to review and renew commitments to the ongoing and changing needs of our parish. 

Most recently, in 2004, Father Beitans commissioned a Long Range Planning Committee.  We became critically aware that changes necessary today could impact decisions and opportunities on our parish campus in the future.  Therefore, the committee performed an assessment of our facilities and met with all parish organizations to determine space needs.  Subsequently, they developed a Long Range Plan (master plan) as a guideline for the long-range implementation of construction required for needed program and facilities upgrades over the next 30 years in multiple phases.  The plan also identified immediate facility and space needs that should be addressed as soon as possible.  Phase I of the plan addressed all of the most pressing facility and program needs, but the budget exceeded $6 million. 

Meanwhile, earlier this year, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis came to St. Lawrence asking that we seek to raise new gifts to address its most essential capital, endowment and ministerial needs.  Each of the 150 parishes across the Archdiocese will participate in this Legacy for Our Mission campaign at some point over a period of a few years to raise these funds for both the Archdiocesan needs and individual parish needs.  St. Lawrence, under the direction of Father Beitans and parish leaders, agreed that our parish was ready to embrace its next capital campaign.

During the past few months, an ad-hoc committee assembled by our pastor reviewed our Long Range Plan up against what our parish could potentially afford and what our most immediate needs were.  The committee developed a project scope that implemented as many of the most pressing needs of the parish while suggesting the postponement of a few other needs to the future -- bringing forth Phase I of the building plan with a much more affordable target -- $1.3 million.  This budget, coupled with what we hope to raise to help fund our share of the most pressing Archdiocesan needs, St. Lawrence is launching Legacy for Our Mission -- Honoring Our Founders' Vision this fall with the goal of raising a total of at least $1.8 million. 

Pledges will be solicited under the guidelines of Christian stewardship for 2007-2009.  We are pleased to share that seed money exists to get the project moving more quickly, thanks to $500,000 still in the bank from our most recent capital campaign, Legacy of Hope.  With the successful gathering of gifts and pledges for Legacy For Our Mission -- Honoring Our Founders' Vision, we will begin implementing facility changes as soon as 2007 and addressing such needs as adult meeting space, accessibility, storage, adequate heating, cooling and ventilation, updated flooring and lighting and other improvements that will bring our beloved founders' vision into clarity for the future.