A Letter from Chair of the Capital Campaign Committee — Jason Rising
December 2016
Dear Members of Bower Hill Community Church,
As we near the end of 2016, the Capital Campaign Committee wants to give an update on the status of the Branching Out Capital Campaign. We are happy to report that as of the end of November we have collected $721,500 of the approximately $770,000 that was pledged during the initial campaign launched in 2014. That is almost 94% of our goal. So first and foremost we want to thank everyone who has contributed to this campaign through their time, talent and treasure. We are also pleased to announce that 62 of the 84 pledging units have completed their capital campaign pledges, and we look forward to seeing this number continue to grow as we close out the campaign in 2017.
Through November, the following projects have been funded by capital campaign contributions – repair of the steeple, new flooring installed in the downstairs lounge, the playground redone with new equipment and ground cover, certain exterior doors and all windows replaced with new models that enhance the safety, energy efficiency and beauty of our church. The boiler system has been replaced. We made a $20,000 contribution to the new organ and $10,000 of the $50,000 committed to the parking lot repairs was spent to rehabilitate the south lot next to Family Promise. Most importantly, we have donated over $72,000 to our missions (Hekima Place, Haiti Water, SHIM and Family Promise). These are blessings from God and show how much we can accomplish as a congregation.
As we enter the final phase of our campaign, we continue to be encouraged by the generous participation of this congregation. If you have completed your commitment, I offer you my sincere gratitude on behalf of the committee. We have accomplished great things with this capital campaign. For those of you still in the process, we continue to be very hopeful that we can achieve 100% of our goal and don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t strive to surpass the $770,000 target. I know there are a number of new members who have joined Bower Hill since the beginning of the campaign. If you are interested in participating in the campaign, please reach out to me, Gordon Mitchell or Brian. I assure you it is never too late to be a part of this important project.
In closing, we are in the process of confirming our commitment to a number of other projects and I will make sure to update the congregation once we have made our recommendations to Session. There is still a lot we want to accomplish. We hope (and expect) to have enough left over to consider additional Phase II projects that include —contributing to lighting in fellowship hall, restoration of the major maintenance reserve fund and funding portions of the exterior painting project—while maintaining our commitment to donate 10% of every dollar collected to the four missions.
This continues to be such an exciting time for our church and I thank you again for all of your generosity. We all want to finish this campaign and exceed our initial goal, so I ask for your continued support and prayers. Thank You!