The interior of Resurrection Catholic Church in Allenton is undergoing extensive renovation as the parish refreshes its historic 108-year-old church with updated flooring, refinished pews and restored interior features. (Submitted photo)
A “LOVE ONE ANOTHER” CAMPAIGN SPOTLIGHT – CELEBRATING THE IMPACT OF YOUR GIFT
It’s not often that a Catholic parish with 275 families can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for major restorations to their church.
Resurrection Catholic Church in Allenton, Washington County, has proven that with a bit of grace-filled engagement and rallying throughout the entire community, it can be done.
Contractors and construction crews have already spent the majority of three months inside the temporarily-closed 108-year-old church near Interstate 41, fueled by fundraising from a local arm of an archdiocesan fundraising campaign that far exceeded expectations.
Parish trustee Wayne Sovinski said that leadership at the parish had discerned refurbishing the church’s interior for a number of years, but the introduction of the $150 million Love One Another campaign by then-Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki opened the doors to more formally create a plan for how they would use funds.
“The goals were a combination of repainting or actually redecorating the interior of the church, replacing the floor, and refinishing the pews. We have quality pews, but they needed attention,” Sovinski said.
“We identified some other issues or problems, electrical and other things that needed attention (and) repainting some pretty nice statues that we had.”
Sovinski said that the goal for Resurrection during the Love One Another campaign was $158,190, but donors blew that goal away.
“We exceeded 175 percent of our goal,” he said of the $275,000 in pledges that came in that can be fulfilled up to 2028, and donors have already delivered about $228,000 of those pledges.
“Once you enter a campaign like this and you see the drawings, the renderings of what we want to accomplish, and then actual photos of what’s happening, people recognize that this money that they donate is going to be used for something important and valuable. We were fortunate that a number of parishioners made some nice contributions to accomplish our ultimate goals.”
He also said that many Allenton residents who aren’t Catholic still saw the value of donating to the church for the good of the overall community — a reflection of the fundraising that happened when the parish began in 1918.
“There was no church in Allenton. Some of the founders of the town recognized the need and reached out to the archdiocese, and they got approval to build a church. There were people in town that were not Catholic who contributed to the church because they saw the need and the importance of that in a town like Allenton,” Sovinski explained.
“That same effort or occurrence happened with us. There’s people who are not necessarily members of Resurrection Parish, but frequently or occasionally stop in. They made contributions to our project in general.”
Sovinski said the money donated through Love One Another is being paired up with a significant amount from the parish’s already-existing unrestricted funds to pay for the renovations. Some of those funds include general community donations.
“They can be used at the discretion of the church that are designated for cemeteries or other obligations that the archdiocese would require any parish to reserve money for,” he explained.
While the parish’s faithful have been attending Mass at nearby St. Lawrence Church in Hartford, Sovinski says that people coming when the church reopens will find a completely renovated interior that crews have worked hard on since November.
“We tweaked our pews a little bit so that we have wider outside aisles and more open aisles to more easily accommodate walkers or wheelchairs, or just general traffic. They’ll see refreshed pews, a refreshed floor, basically new floors,” Sovinski said.
“In 1917, we were very fortunate that the parishioners invested in some just extraordinarily beautiful stained-glass windows. People seeing that stained-glass work are basically in awe of how beautiful they are for a small church like this. Those windows are enhanced by the quality of the painting that was done by a contractor.”
The work is not yet complete as crews were set to reinstall the cross and various statues during mid-March.
Sovinski says while they hope to reopen the parish far before the summer of this year, the parish is planning a consecration Mass for July with one of Milwaukee’s auxiliary bishops presiding.
He says that event will celebrate the reopening of a church whose renovation also acts as a celebration of commitment by the parish’s families and the community in general, sharing talent as well as treasure.
“It’s amazing how many different talents people have. How many talents are identified even in a small church, from carpenters to painters to finance people to electrical, understanding electrical issues, plumbing issues? And we can reach out to these people,” Sovinski said.
“Some of the work we’ve done as volunteers. There’s a lot of it’s been hired, but there’s a lot of skills that parishioners have here that dovetail really well with accomplishing and completing our project.”
