Capital Campaign Update

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A Heart for Mission

Off to an Exciting Start!

The Sisters are very grateful for the wonderful response we have received to our inaugural Annual Appeal mailing.  We have heard from 385 friends and have raised $31,500 as of May 1^st.  Many a familiar name has come up on our list of Annual Appeal donors – those who have steadfastly supported our mission for years and many who, additionally, helped us achieve such success in our recent capital campaign (see previous page.)  We are especially pleased to have a significant number of new donors who have responded to our request for support.  THANK YOU for taking time to consider our Appeal.  Your gift will go a long way toward helping us tend to our property, our buildings and care for our community members.

A complete listing of donors to our Annual Appeal will be published in our December 2003 issue of the LBW.  If you have not yet responded we would be happy to hear from you and add your name to our list of TERRIFIC supporters.  As Sister Judith Ann mentioned in her letter accompanying the Annual Appeal, the Sisters have made the decision to forego a contribution envelope in this issue of the LBW in the hopes that our regular, generous supporters will respond to our inaugural effort with the Annual Appeal.  There is still plenty of time to fill out your response card and send it to us.  If you have misplaced your response card or have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Jane Wueliner, Director of Development or Sister Jo Anne Form, OSB, Development Assistant at (630) 971-0644.

Benedictine Sisters of the Sacred Heart

We are in our final year of the pledge payment cycle for A Heart for Mission.  We want to give you some final figures for this overwhelmingly successful undertaking.  As you will remember, our initial goal was $1.5 million.  We came to learn that certain renovation projects, especially in our treasured chapel, were going to cost substantially more than originally estimated and we therefore adjusted our goal to $2.5 million.

Our Development Office is pleased to announce four grants.  The National Religious Retirement Fund (NRRO), after a comprehensive 3-day consultation visit last summer, voted a grant of $100,000 in support of renovation needs in our infirmary area.  Additionally, Support Our Aging Religious (SOAR!) provided a grant of $10,000.  (See next page).   The Koch Foundation provided $25.000 and the Slovak Catholic Charitable Organization provided $3,000 for renovation work on the chapel.  Our capital campaign was, additionally, the beneficiary of two bequests.  These are some of the generous gifts over the last year that have taken our total gifts and pledges in support of A Heart for Mission to $2,367,485.  Additionally, please welcome the following capital campaign supporters to our Honor Roll of Donors within the last year!

We remain optimistic that we will achieve our new campaign goal of $2.5 million.  Gifts and pledges on behalf of A Heart for Mission, as of July 28th, 2003, the total  is $2,373,022.  We thank you for all of your generous support to date.

It is not too late to add your name to our impressive list of over 600 donors in support of monastery and chapel renovations. 

If you have not yet completed your pledge card, we invite you to do so right now while you are reading this article.  It’s not too late to help us realize our dream of monastery and chapel renovation.  Our Development Office remains busy with the challenge of completing our campaign.  Beyond our conversations with individual donors, we have begun the process of soliciting grant support to help us reach our goal.  We are so proud to be able to demonstrate to these large funding organizations the significant level of financial support from our friends, families and neighbors.  This goes a long way toward convincing a large foundation that we have pursued our goal in an orderly, logical manner and that their support will be a welcome addition to our already impressive Honor Roll of Donors.

Let's Look at the numbers:

                                         Push for the Goal                  Cash Flow Update

Overall Campaign Goal           $2,500,000                  Total Gifts and Pledges to Date         $2,390,522

Raised to date                         $2,390,522                Cash Received to Date                       $1,915,659

Remaining Goal                       $  109.478                Amount Remaining to be Paid            $  474,863
                                                                                      Over 3 year pledge period

Additional gifts are always welcome.  If you have any questions about A Heart for Mission, please feel free to call our Development Director, Jane Wuellner at (630) 971-0644, and she will be happy to assist you.

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Benedictine Sisters of Sacred Heart Monastery
1910 Maple Avenue
Lisle, IL 60532-2164
(630) 969-7040
Fax (630) 969-4839

webmaster@shmlisle.org.