Christmas In August at
St. Brigid's

Projected Debt: $130,000

Donations to Date: $ 37,268 last updated 9/6/06

Dear Online Friends,

At the end of this fiscal year (August 31, 2006) St. Brigid's faces around $130,000 in unpaid bills. We need to erase this debt as quickly as possible as we enter this new fiscal year in September. Here's how "Christmas in August" works...

We're inviting all our parishioners and visitors from other parishes (including YOU, our online visitor) to consider making a "Christmas gift" now. Each parish relies heavily on the annual Christmas collection to fund the activities of the parish. We encourage our parishioners and visitors plan to make their usual Christmas contribution in December. However if they gave an equal amount to St. Brigid's at this time of the year, then we could erase our debt quickly.

Some things you ought to know:

• we found ourselves in this condition because of unplanned increases
in utilities (just like in your home), benefit packages (we have an extensive
lay and religious staff which coordinates the many ministries at St.Brigid's),
and insurance costs.

• we didn't make our goal in the Catholic Ministries appeal last year, so we
didn't receive the rebate that would have reduced our debt

• some of our debts are actually bills we hadn't paid in the prior fiscal year that we carried over to the year we just completed (which shows us the value of paying off debts now, rather than letting them build up).

• we have taken all this into account for the coming year, and we project
a very conservative, balanced budget for this coming year

• while we're suggesting a "Christmas amount", we're grateful for any contribution you could make at this time.

How can you make a contribution?

If you value the ministry and work of St. Brigid's and want to support us
as we continue to do God's work,
please mail whatever contribution you can make to:

St. Brigid's Parish
75 Post Ave
Westbury NY 11590

Thank you.