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Dear friends,

Your Wardens held a Zoom meeting today with Father Chris and our Treasurer Todd to review our financial position, and to try to see where we might be in 2 or 3 months.

Certainly looking at the news and hearing our Federal and Provincial Medical Health Officers,  we think we can all agree that the Churches in Canada will be in lockdown at least through June of this year, if not longer. We have had some good news in that the Diocese of Toronto is going to forgive all of the Parish payments to the Diocese for the months of April and May! This will save us some $21,500 over these two months. As you can imagine, this very generous act will cost the Diocese a considerable amount of income – according to their letter some $3.6M. They are funding this through vacant land as security for the loans.

We believe that with the cost reduction actions we have already taken, such as reducing the setting on the thermostats in the building, and with this generous relief from the Diocese, we could last out for a couple of months before we have to access our Line of Credit at the Bank. This assumes the worst scenario in that the Daycare can no longer pay us rent and that our renters in the Rectory are also unable to pay us.

Since the closure of the services at the Church in mid-March, the only income we have received is that from PAR and one e-transfer sent to Todd Hillhouse. We do understand that these are dire times and a stress on your own financial situations; but while we are all tightening our belts and thinking of our personal funds, making a donation of any amount to St James will ensure that Father Chris is able to continue his work of calling people, holding services on line etc., and that we will be there when our doors open once again at the end of this ordeal.

So your Wardens ask that you consider the following four methods of making a donation, however small, to St James:

  • PAR is the most obvious way for the Church to not be affected by this lockdown and still see donations coming in, and if you are not yet signed up for PAR we would ask that you seriously consider changing to this method. Attached below you will find the application form which if you would fill in and then send back to either the Wardens, Father Chris or to Todd Hillhouse our Treasurer.
  • You can use our website to go to Canada Helps to make a donation. This comes to us automatically monthly although there is a fee for each donation.
  • Todd is making arrangements so that if you can do an Interac transfer to him at treasurer@stjamescaledoneast.ca he will then deposit into our St James bank account.
  • If you are not comfortable with any of these, then perhaps you would consider bringing a cheque and dropping it off in our mailbox at the main door of the church or simply mailing it.

Please give some prayerful time to our request, and please know our prime objective is that you are all safe and healthy, and that we are able to provide pastoral and spiritual support as needed by the Parish.

Peace,

David and Claire

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