Serving All of our Generations! A parishioner asked to what extent the proposed Building Faith plan would serve the senior population of the parish. That is a great question and the answer below might surprise you. Inviting Doorways The heart of our Parish Mission and Ministry is possibly summarized by becoming an "inviting" presence of Christ here for all people. We want to encourage all people to enter into the life of Jesus Christ here in the Church, on this property, especially at Mass but in so many other ways. The Building Faith plan has helped us to see how difficult it is for many people to "get onto our property and into our buildings.” The primary group challenged in this way is our senior citizens. Over the past ten years dozens of senior/older members of the parish have commented (usually from a hospital bed) that they are life long members of St. Albert but they can no longer attend because of our parking. They typically mention a neighboring parish where they attend now because "they have much easier parking lot". In the last three years we have had at least three elderly parishioners fall down the steps leading up to the parish offices, two of them requiring ambulance transfer to hospital. Several times a month we cannot celebrate a funeral Mass at the time that families would appreciate and we cannot offer the bereavement luncheon hospitality to our bereaved families because of traffic, parking, and school activities in our church hall. 1. New Traffic and Parking: Building Faith proposes turning our currently 70 parking spaces that don't have steps into 350 spaces with handicapped accessibility. 2. The new "three zone" traffic patterns will free up the main drive and 150 parking spaces adjacent to the church for funeral and wedding celebrations any time of day. 3. The new Parish Life Center will give our school children the much needed large group meeting space during the days and thus free the church hall everyday for funeral luncheons and church-oriented meetings. 4. The Parish Life Center will have close-in parking spaces and total handicapped accessibility to the parish offices and meeting rooms. 5. New two way entrance roads from Wallings and from Royalwood will relieve the congestion of traffic (particularly intimidating to some senior drivers). So, it might be said that just about everything in our Building Faith proposal is designed to encourage and assist our most senior members to feel welcomed and safe in approaching St. Albert for all of their spiritual needs. Continue to look at this page to see responses to others concerns regarding "Building Faith: A New Generation". Holy, Kind and Giving Fifth Sunday of Lent