A Once-in-a-Generation Celebration
We’re asking donors to help us fund an historic weekend at St. Paul’s

Back in 1986, St. Paul’s hired a brass band and marched around the block to celebrate the burning of our mortgage. The bishop was there, and folks connected to the parish all came to mark this great milestone in our stewardship of all that God has given us.

Since then, over nearly four decades, St. Paul’s has accomplished quite a lot, and survived quite a lot. We’ve had difficult years and easier years; we’ve baptized, married, and buried hundreds of parishioners; we’ve taken on several missions in the name of the risen Christ; we’ve replaced our roof several times; we’ve made important renovations to our spaces; and now, in the mid-2020s, we have undertaken a $2M+ project that has made our physical plant universally accessible, safe, and beautiful, beneath a dazzling new roof.

Meanwhile, the parish has begun to grow again, and we have five members who are planning to confirm their baptismal vows. We also have welcomed yet another new baby to the parish (after several joyful births in 2024), and he will be baptized on June 29th. And our diocese has welcomed a new bishop, the ninth in our diocesan history: The Rt. Rev. Phil LaBelle, who plans to visit us on June 29th at all three masses. (It’s a Sunday-Supper Sunday, so it’s possible the baptism will happen at 5:00pm!) Finally, we are welcoming friends from around the diocese to the campus to celebrate Pride, and this will also be one of our patronal feast days — the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul.

This is going to be an historic weekend! We’ll begin on Saturday, June 28, later in the afternoon, with these events:

  • A blessing of our buildings and all their rooms and gathering spaces

  • Self-guided labyrinth walks, and fun in the garden for children

  • A catered reception with sparkling toasts honoring those who led us through this major renovation

  • Self-guided tours of the renewed buildings, with displays of some of our parish archives

We’re inviting past rectors, clergy who were lifted up by us for ordination, and anyone who has called St. Paul’s their spiritual home over the years. We hope that Saturday afternoon and evening can be a joyful gala celebration of all that we have accomplished, with God’s help.

Then, on Sunday, June 29th, Bishop LaBelle will be here, and we plan to host two festive coffee hours in the morning to warmly welcome our new bishop to St. Paul’s. We may also enjoy record attendance at the 5:00pm Sunday Supper, which means we’ll have to plan a larger dinner for everyone.

Can You Help Us?

Here are the items we need to both fund and arrange for this festive weekend:

  • Posters and brochures for the self-guided tours and archive displays, and to promote the event to the neighborhood

  • A food truck for the Saturday afternoon family-friendly activities

  • Catering for the Saturday evening reception

  • Rented dishware and other items for the Saturday evening reception

  • Wine and non-alcoholic sparkling beverages for Saturday evening and the Sunday Supper

  • Face-painting and other activities for children

  • A 3D cake in the shape of our church for the Saturday reception

  • A new large Pride flag for our east entrances

  • Flowers for Saturday and Sunday events and liturgies

  • Cakes for the Sunday coffee hours (including a Pride-themed cake in seven colors)

  • Additional coffee hour food

  • Childcare for Saturday activities (two nursery staff)

  • Additional food for the Sunday Supper

To offer this celebration to our members (past and present), our contractors, parish friends, and our neighbors, we need $9,000. If you’d like to make a contribution, please click the button below.

Thank You!

Make a donation
Collage of images inside and outside of St. Paul's
 
Give

If you have general or specific questions about contributing (frequency, stock options, etc.) contact our treasurer at treasurer@stpaulseattle.org.

Update, August 31, 2023

Celebrating our Capital Campaign Success

Last spring we kicked off the capital campaign to raise $1,011,700 to make St. Paul's accessible for all and to complete long-deferred repairs. Your response was terrific, and by mid-summer we increased our goal to raise an additional $150,000 to address further important improvements to our buildings and grounds.

As we reach the end of August 2023, we are very close to meeting the increased goal thanks to your generous response. We have $449,533 on hand in funds that preceded the campaign, mostly bequests from donors who wanted their gifts to support our buildings and grounds. We raised $670,896 in pledges and donations for the campaign itself. Thank you! If anyone is still discerning whether to participate, or whether to increase their pledge, know that we are just $41,271 away from our increased goal.

We are planning a festive celebration on Sunday, October 1st after the 10:30 liturgy to mark this moment in our history, and hear a more detailed report on what we've accomplished as well as our construction plans for the coming months. Father Stephen will also lead celebrations and information sessions following the 8:00am and 5:00pm masses. Please join us.

Joe McDermott and Laura Saunders, Capital Campaign Co-Chairs
The Rev. Stephen Crippen, Rector

From the Rector, June 1, 2023

Repairing and Revitalizing our Church Home and Mission Base

For the past few Sundays, I’ve been giving small updates on our Capital Campaign, which began this spring. It’s time for a more detailed look at how things are going. I am profoundly gratified and encouraged to report that the Campaign is going tremendously well. Thank you to all who have already pledged, and to all who are still discerning their involvement. Thank you so much. You are faithfully stepping forward to repair and revitalize our church home and mission base, and your efforts will touch the lives of our parishioners and neighbors for decades to come.

The Original Plan

Our hope was to do the following projects at a cost of $1,011,700, with pledges fully met by the end of 2024. Items marked with a 🔹 are part of our effort to make our buildings and grounds fully accessible to all.

  • New roof on both buildings; resealed skylights above the sanctuary 

  • New decorative-metal fence around the perimeter of the grounds

  • New & relocated east outdoor trash/recycling shed

  • New exterior stairs (with railings and landing) to the church office

  • Remodeled, welcoming, and more secure office reception area

  • Upgraded rector’s office for team meetings & pastoral care

  • New flooring in office area (carpet or tile)

  • New floor tile in parish hall

  • Repainted office area and parish hall

  • Repainted exterior of the office building

  • 🔹 New bridge from the parking lot to the sanctuary

  • 🔹 New ADA-compliant ramp to the parish hall on the south side

  • 🔹 New handrails for all indoor stairways (on both edges of stairways)

  • 🔹 Upgraded restroom off the parish hall to make it ADA-compliant

Many of these projects are long overdue, and their completion will prevent expensive deferred maintenance, particularly in the case of the roof. The office building is showing its age (85 years), and needs to be refurbished to be safe, welcoming, and useful for staff, volunteers, worshipers, guests, and vendors. Our relatively newer building, now aged 61 years, shares with the office building a deep need for accessibility improvements.

I am delighted to report that we have received enthusiastic support from nearly half of our pledging households, with just a little ways to go on our original goal:

  • Funds on hand, including those given by member bequests: $406,000

  • Amount pledged as of June 1, 2023: $559,501

  • Remainder to be raised against the original goal: $46,199

Again, thank you!

The vestry has also authorized the use of our separate, existing liturgy fund to take care of these items:

  • 🔹 Four shortened sanctuary pews (two are complete)

  • Repaired glass (scratched by a vandal) in the parish hall

What’s Next? 

As you have seen in recent newsletters and other announcements, our Accessibility Task Force has identified several other issues that, if addressed, would make our entire building complex accessible to all, with only three remaining exceptions – the choir loft and the altar and pulpit steps. I am confident that we will exceed our original goal, given the overwhelmingly positive response so far. If we exceed it substantially, we could do several more things that have long been on our wish list, and would profoundly improve our facilities:

  • 🔹 A chair lift for the small stairway leading to the chapel, sacristy, and office

  • 🔹 A new south exterior entrance to the library and children’s rooms (& restroom), entering from halfway down the new south ramp

  • 🔹 New and higher (easier on the knees) altar-rail cushions

  • 🔹 New flooring (carpet or tile) throughout the office building, including safer stairways

  • 🔹 Upgraded sound system in the sanctuary

  • Cladding of the office building exterior due to siding decay

  • Windows in the exterior (south-facing) and interior (office-facing) walls of the upgraded rector’s office, for light and safe-church compliance

  • New lighting in the office area and parish hall

  • Repaired and possibly redesigned ceiling in the parish hall

  • Clerestory windows in the chapel, for ventilation and light

  • Repainted chapel walls and ceiling

  • Replacement of the irreparable garden fountain

To be able to afford the items on our wish list, and to safeguard against cost overruns of all projects, we would love to raise an additional $150,000. This gives us a new goal for remaining pledges of $196,190

How You Can Help

Make a Pledge

If you haven’t yet pledged, please consider doing so. Your generous gift joins those of many others to continue our historic and prophetic mission at 15 Roy Street. I hope we can have full participation of all pledging households, regardless of the amount. No gift is too small!

Sponsor a Project

If you find one of the items on our list particularly interesting, contact me to ask about being the benefactor of that particular item. Some of them are relatively small, at least by comparison to the others (for example: the altar-rail cushions). At some point in the coming weeks, I may be coming to you about this, too!

Extend a Matching-Gift Challenge

Whether or not you already have pledged, I invite you to consider joining a group of parishioners we are forming to extend a matching-gift challenge as part of our effort to add the additional needed items to our original project list. One member has already indicated a desire to offer a matching gift, and I would love to find more, to create a matching challenge of $50,000-$75,000. If the matching challenge is $75,000, and other households meet the challenge, then we’ve raised our additional $150,000! Again, no matter how much you are able to give, your participation is what helps St. Paul’s the most.

I hold all of us in prayer as we undertake this daunting yet energizing task together. We are doing what God commanded our patron, St. Paul, to do: “Get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do” (Acts 9:6).

With profound gratitude, I am faithfully yours,



Give


FAQs

  • From time to time churches need to spend a lot of money on a substantial upgrade to their buildings. Churches are not in the business of making money, and, unless they are beneficiaries of multiple wealthy donors, don’t have the money available to tackle huge projects – like a new roof. Our budget each year is tight. We generally have a balanced budget, but it’s not easy, and your vestry is very careful to spend your donations wisely and carefully, and always with prayerful consideration. So when we need to tackle a big expensive project, we launch a capital campaign. Pledges made to the capital campaign are separate from your annual pledges, and they allow us to embark on much needed work, knowing that the members of the parish have promised to fund that work.

  • Yes, it’s a lot of money. Almost triple our pledge income each year. And your vestry knows that most of you cannot simply give 4 times the amount you pledged last fall.

    We are not expecting to raise all of the money from parishioners. St Paul’s, thanks to generous bequests, has some money that we invest through the diocese – our Diocesan Investment Funds (DIF). One of these funds is specifically set aside for building issues. While we draw 4% of these funds each year, to help us balance our budget, using the entirety of our Property DIF for a new roof, and much needed repairs to our office building, is exactly the purpose of having such a fund. It is entirely appropriate, and good stewardship, to use our Property Fund to cover a significant portion of the cost.

    Additionally, we received a bequest from Tom Edwards, Br. Basil, at the end of 2019. We invested this money, and did not simply roll it into our operating budget, even when that would have been very helpful. It is good stewardship to use bequests for special projects that will have a long term benefit to the parish.

    So we have some of the money already. But we need all of you to contribute as you are able. We will have pledging options set up soon, where you can pledge a monthly amount over and above your regular pledge, pledge a lump sum payment, or transfer stock to St Paul’s (as a non-profit we don’t pay capital gains tax, and the full value of the stock is a tax deductible donation for you).

  • We will have two opportunities for you to give us feedback and suggestions, on February 19th, and March 19th. There will be both in-person and Zoom discussions. We look forward to hearing your suggestions. We are also forming a task force made up of parishioners with mobility issues to advise us on how best to meet their needs. If you have mobility issues and would like to be on this Taskforce, please email the parish office.

  • We would love to put in an elevator, providing access to all levels of our buildings. We even had the architect draw up plans to do just that. Then we got quotes of over $2 million dollars, plus a 5 figure annual maintenance bill. We simply don’t have the money.

    An ADA-compliant ramp would need to extend from the parking lot, right up to the edge of the labyrinth, turn around, and then continue up to the office. The much shorter and almost-level ramp in the tentative plans (from the parking lot directly into the front corner of the church) is priced at $158,000. A ramp to the office would be many, many multiples more expensive, take up parking spaces, impact our labyrinth, and block light into the church.

    We have the option, at a future date, of putting in a chair lift for the stairs from the church up to the chapel and office area. Or if we raise enough money, that can be part of this project. And part of this project will be to upgrade railings and lighting throughout our buildings, so that stairs are easier to navigate than they are now.

  • We need to replace the roof urgently, and roof work can only be done in the summer. We hope to replace the roof this summer. We can begin work on the fence soon too. This will have the advantage of securing the construction site for the rest of the work. Once we have a final plan, we can apply for permits, and get firm bids from contractors. Ideally we would like to begin the work on the office building late this year.

  • We don’t expect to have all of the capital campaign pledges paid by then. In fact, we know we will not. But the work is urgent, and we have the option of making a temporary loan to ourselves from our general endowment fund, which we will pay back as we receive your promised pledge payments.