Renovation Committee

When Fr. Raymond Goodwin was Pastor at Saint Mary's Parish, the need to renovate and update the upper church was recognized and a committee organized.  At first, the question was whether this would be a restoration of the church as it was before, or a new renovation to bring the church a fresh look and efficient services such as electrical, fire protection and painting.  As the committee began its meetings, needs presented themselves in the church with the need to repair leaks in the roof and the tower, and to the exterior of the window frames.  This took several years as the expenses were covered by the monies received from a weekly second collection and other donations from parishioners.  

In 2016, the committee received the names of several architectural firms and began interviewing them to determine which would be the best fit for the parish.  In April of 2017, they settled on the firm of Spencer, Sullivan and Voyt of Cambridge, and Fr. Ray deferred on deciding since he was retiring in a matter of weeks and felt it was a decision more appropriately left for the new pastor.  When Fr. Peter Joyce arrived that summer as the new pastor, he helped the committee to define its scope and help determine a plan as he and the parish moved forward in hiring Spencer, Sullivan and Voyt to assess the needs of the building and develop drawings for a fundraiser.  One of the first decisions was to identify that this would be a renovation rather than a restoration.  A restoration would imply that the original structure and or appearance would be reconstituted.  However, many of the most valued aspects of our current church setting, the stained glass windows, the stations of the cross and their frames and the large marble reredos are not original to the church but installed over time from 1910 to 1950.  So the committee took its identity and mission as a Renovation Committee.
As the Diocese of Worcester began its Legacy of Hope campaign in the spring of 2018, the parish was allowed to yoke its special renovation project to the diocesan campaign.  In turn, the parish would assume the cost of the fundraising effort including specialized materials for the renovation and an assessment of $435,028 to be paid in 16 quarterly installments from September 2019 to the summer of 2022.  The project now moved from a vision and idea to planning and organizing the renovation.  Much detail needed to be set in place for the organization and printing of a brochure and the scheduling of receptions to explain the concept and get parishioners on board with pledges for a four year period.  The campaign was established with three different goals, a firm need of $1.5 million, a wish goal of $2 million and a challenge goal of $2.5 million.  The committee ventured to these waters knowing that even this was not enough.  All of the needed work would cost over $3 million, especially since at the last planning meeting before printing the brochure the magnificent Cathedral of Notre Dame in Parish burned from renovations that ignited a fire in the attic there.  The question was raised, and is still not answered, if the parish would be required to install a sprinkler system in the attic to prevent a similar accident in Milford.  Nonetheless, the brochure was printed with the wish list of all aspects realizing that initial costs estimates would change to real figures depending on when and who was contracted for the work.