#GIVINGTUESDAY THELEAVEN.ORG | VOL. 44, NO. 15 | NOVEMBER 18, 2022
LEAVEN PHOTO BY JAY SOLDNER
Mark Brown, maintenance and facilities manager at Immaculate Conception-St. Joseph Parish in Leavenworth, stands by the truck with a snowplow that was purchased with Giving Tuesday donations last year. The truck, snowplow and a salt spreader help to keep the parish up and running even in bad weather.
Catholic giving made easy: Support your favorites Nov. 29 By Dean Backes Special to The Leaven
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AWRENCE — After opening its doors to thousands of Masses, baptisms, first Communions and parish get-togethers for the better part of a century, St. John the Evangelist Church here was in need of serious repair. So, pastor Father John Cousins, OFM Cap., rallied the troops. As last year’s GivingTuesday campaign inched closer, Father John called on the parish’s director of communications Jacinta Hoyt to assist him. “I came up with the idea that we were going to use social media, the church bulletin and an email blast as a way to promote the fundraiser and to encourage people to donate,” Hoyt said. “We looked through different parish directories and encouraged parishioners to submit photos of baptisms or first Communions — different ways in which the church was showing how it was their home, how they had been involved in the church and how the church had been involved in their lives.”
LEAVEN PHOTO BY JAY SOLDNER
Father Glenn Snow, O.Carm., pastor of Immaculate Conception-St. Joseph Parish in Leavenworth, shows off the camera and tripod in the choir loft of St. Joseph that is used to livestream Masses. The equipment was purchased with funds raised by last year’s GivingTuesday. This year, the parish hopes to raise enough to buy similar equipment for Immaculate Conception. Hoyt took the photos she gathered, some dating back to the 1950s, and posted them on Facebook. Parishioners and
family, friends and relatives, linked to the photos, then tagged each other and began commenting on the photos, setting
the marketing plan in motion. A generous donor offered to match the goal of $50,000 and St. John the Evangelist wound up taking in $90,000 in donations for a total of $140,000 after the match. “We’d just like to give a big thank you to anyone that donated to help us sustain the church,” Hoyt said of last year’s successful campaign. That success has left organizers eager for this year’s GivingTuesday campaign, when St. John the Evangelist is looking to raise money for additional upgrades, like $6,000 to make improvements and repairs to the church’s elevator. While donors are allowed to begin donating to their favorite school, parish or ministry ahead of time, GivingTuesday officially launches Nov. 29. The online leaderboard at the Catholic Foundation of Northeast Kansas (CFNEK) website — cfnek.org — will be accessible from Nov. 23 through Dec. 5. Established for the purpose of encouraging online giving for good causes the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, the idea of >> See “FAITH-BASED” on page 5