Almost twelve years ago, we inaugurated the Scrip Gift Card Program at St. Francis de Sales. This has been an ideal fundraiser as there has been no door-to-door selling, no tickets, and nothing to lose. Just buy the Scrip cards and do your regular shopping, and a small percentage from each card is returned to the parish. But the key is the number of people involved. The more who participate, the more successful we are.
As the Christmas shopping season is now underway, I usually ask parishioners to purchase our Scrip gift cards when shopping and to give as gifts. However, in recent years there has been a revolution in the shopping industry. Increasing numbers of people shop online, some old favorite stores are gone and some big box retailers are struggling. So while I will ask you to use our Scrip gift cards again this year, I am also making an appeal for everyone to participate. If each parishioner throughout the year would do his/her grocery shopping and gasoline purchasing with Scrip gift cards, it would be a tremendous help and would “take up the slack” for the new ways of shopping. There is an extensive list in this bulletin of the many gift cards we have available for purchase.
So that is the Big Idea of this week’s letter: I am asking you to make that regular commitment to purchase your weekly “gas and groceries” with Scrip gift cards purchased through the parish office or our school office. It is a small thing that everyone can easily do and we will reap big benefits. Just make it a point to stop by before you go to the grocery store or to the gas station. You can also use Giant Eagle gift cards to purchase other gift cards in their stores and thereby build up your Fuel Perks credits.
We will continue to stock a wide variety of gift cards for retail and discount stores, entertainment, various consumer services, and for eating-out establishments of all kinds. You can also purchase Kohl’s Scrip cards to pay your monthly bill. There are no other gift cards you can purchase to pay your bills – just our Scrip Kohl’s cards.
This week both our Day School and our PSR students are preparing for Confessions (as well as our Catholic High Schools.) Why not prepare for His Second Coming and Christmas Day by coming to our diocesan cluster’s Advent Communal Penance on Tuesday, December 11 (7:00 p.m.) at Nativity of the Lord Jesus Church? Since we already offered our parish’s own communal Penance while Fr. Emmanuel was here for our parish mission, this would be our only communal opportunity for Confessions before Christmas. So prepare your soul’s way for The Lord this week or come to Saturday afternoon Confessions (extended Advent times – we will begin at 3:00 p.m.)
Maranatha, Fr. Bline
