New Option Offered for Weekly Contributions

By Peter Blanchard, Finance Committee

St. Mary's Parish will soon be joining hundreds of parishes of all denominations across the nation in offering its members the safe, simple and secure ability to electronically make your weekly contributions. The system is called Parish Pay. Iit is an ACH (automated clearing house) transaction, the same as used for insurance and college tuition payments. It will allow parishioners the option of having their weekly contributions automatically deducted from a checking, savings or credit card account on the same day each month.

Initially, you will use a special form to declare your weekly contribution, as well as Christmas and Easter contributions. This information will be entered into a secure program which resides with Parish Pay. An electronic debit will be made to your account once a month for the total, e.g. if you wanted to give $25.00 each week: $100 would be deducted form your designated account on the same day each month. You will have access to your password protected, encrypted account at all times. If you decide to change your contributions, you will be able to do so by logging onto a secure site and make the changes as often as you like.

You will still receive your envelopes and a pad of notices that indicate that you contribute through Parish Pay. Envelopes will still be used for special collections, however. But that will likely change in the future.

Why are we doing this? St. Mary's is a large parish, almost 2,800 families; approximately 1,600 are active with about 800 using envelopes on a regular basis. When families miss Mass or go away on vacation or business, that lost contribution is rarely made up the following week and the parish finds itself on a cash flow roller coaster. If St. Mary's is to continue providing a wide range of services to the community, we must insure that we have a predictable cash flow, and in the process raise members' awareness of parish finances and hopefully increase the giving level in general.

More information will be provided throughout the summer as we launch this program. Please read it carefully. Encourage your family and friends to participate.