The Building Committee and Parish Council identified repairing and repainting the exterior of our building as a priority project. It has not been painted in over twenty years and the cedar plank siding is warped or damaged in a number of areas – especially on the street-facing side where it gets the most weather. Earlier this year, we went through a process of getting quotes and discussing the scope of the project with appropriate contractors. We also applied for an Anglican Foundation Grant and a Diocesan Capital Grant. We are very grateful to the Anglican Foundation and Diocesan Council for their support -- we were successful in both applications. We are pleased to say that we are moving forward with Wolfgang Painters to have the work completed this year!
The full costs of this project amount to a total of $85,750. The generousity of the Anglican Foundation and the Diocese cover $50,375 of that. In addition, we recevied a gift from St Catherine’s, Port Coquitlam for $11,073 as part of their merger into St Laurence (thank you so much to St Catherine's!). The parish has additional funding of $10,500 to dedicate to the project (some extraordinary income from a film contract and some unspent memorial gifts). We had planned to keep the amount we asked of the congregation to $11,000 with the final few thousand coming from our investments. However, our Consolidated Trust Fund investment has lost value so far this year. So we decided to challenge ourselves to complete this project without dipping into those funds.
We are pleased to say that as we launch this small campaign, we have 10% of the target already raised. We know many of you have been genrous in the past when it comes to caring for our building. If you are in the position to make an extra contribution towards this project, please mark your donation (cash or cheque) as for “the Building Fund.” You can make an online donation here (click on the green Give button, select "Special Offering" and put "Building Fund" in the notes field).
A breakdown of the costs and funding sources is available in June's issue of The Grapevine, available from the Parish Office.