St. Dominic Catholic Church

Pastor's Corner

January 21, 2018

New staff members!

I would like to introduce two new members of the staff at St. Dominic’s.  Dave Lear is a long-time member of the parish and has been a vital member of the team that helps put together the Parish Carnival each year.  Dave is retired, and has a wealth of knowledge about all things electrical, and is also very handy with carpentry.  He will be working part time as a plant manager, which includes the school.  We have a large campus, with multiple buildings, many of which are old and the maintenance needs are never ending (I’m very grateful that so many of you think to make donations to our building and maintenance fund).  We also have many, many people who use our facilities every week, so there is a lot of wear and tear on our buildings and furishings.

Anyone who has hired a plumber or a carpenter or electrician for a small job knows how expensive that can be.  Dave’s job is to keep an eye out for maintenance issues on the campus and to fix what he can himself, or oversee anyone we contract to make sure the job is done well.  He will also be helping to anticipate the replacement of equipment before it breaks and we are scrambling to replace it.  Dave will also help me evaluate a report on our property that we received from an engineering firm sent by the Archdiocese last spring.

Our other new staff member is Aidan Williams, who is our new custodian.  He just began two weeks ago and is working closely with Dave Lear.  I have asked him to set up a schedule not just to maintain the bathrooms and empty garbage, but to have regular cleaning of all the various rooms in our property. I have also asked him to help us make sure that groups that use our facilities are leaving them in good condition, which means having the necessary cleaning equipment available to groups.  The custodian’s job is not to pick up after groups when they’ve used our facilities, but more of performing periodic deep cleaning.  Aidan recently was confirmed at St. Dominic’s and he and his wife have one of their children in our preschool.

One last note.  At a recent deanery meeting, the pastor of the parish was bragging about how his parishioners took pride in picking up any garbage or debris that they saw in their parking lot or anywhere else on their campus.  I encourage you to do the same here, please – and especially be sure not to leave any Kleenex, bulletins, water bottles or other debris in the church.  It’s God’s house, after all!