Parish Pastoral Minutes
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
In Attendance:
Father Showreddy, Father Eustace, Ja-Deen Johnson, Theresa Roberts, Maria Hartman, Connie Merkel, Amberlie O’Toole, Ben Laker, Bobby Eicholtz
The meeting was called to order.
Father Showreddy opened the meeting with scripture, followed by leading us in prayer.
A motion was made to approve the council minutes. Minutes were seconded and were approved.
Pastor’s Report from Father Showreddy:
Father returned from his trip to India. He had a good trip visiting family.
Things are going well in the parish. Tanya is helping with tomorrow’s funeral while Patty is out right now.
Pastor’s Report from Father Eustace:
Father Eustace shared that he had the Ash Wednesday evening Mass which went well.
He was surprised that there were only 40ish people at the soup dinner following.
He stated that many people have been making confessions for Lent
Principal’s Report:
Ryan Schnarr was not able to attend due to his dad’s surgery. Ben mentioned that he reached out to Ryan inquiring for someone from the school commission to be on parish council.
Financial Report:
Ja-Deen shared that we are up $125,000 for the fiscal year so far. However, we lowered the tithing budget last year as a precaution. Facilities expenses are up because of the roof replacement. We did receive a grant from the Archdiocese to cover some of those expenses.
Ja-Deen just received budget details so she will start working on next year’s budget.
Update from finance council meeting - There are many facility projects coming up due to our aging building. There was a water leak in the narthex. An Archdiocesan official came out and said we have to replace the roof over that area before we work on repairing the interior. The roof in the narthex is probably not getting done in this calendar year-Targeting for 2027. The music room roof needs to be completely stripped after getting an inspection. We have 6 roofs in total. Father Showreddy would also like the back parking lot resurfaced. Ja-Deen thinks it’s necessary to start putting more funds into our building fund. Only about $20,000 gets put in automatically per year. The school has money coming in through donations that isn’t earmarked for a certain area so there’s a possibility that can be used.
Choice Scholarships:
Connie asked about choice dollars and any more information with that. Ja-Deen said available dollars will increase this coming year and she thinks we will be good with our set tuition rates.
The new law regarding the removal of an income cap for eligibility doesn’t go into effect until July 1, 2026. Due to this, people still have to submit their income information for this coming school year when applying before this date.
The scholarship amount each family receives depends on the school district a family lives in. They will have to provide proof of their address when applying.
Outreach Update:
Connie found a replacement from Faith in Action to take her seat on parish council. Lisa White will start in April as the council seat.
Men’s Club:
Bobby shared the men’s club fundraiser, March Mayhem, is coming up March 14th. They have received $20,000 in sponsorships thus far and 150 tickets have been sold. Bobby asked about Venmo as an option for ticket sales and he mentioned Jason Jaffe would like to talk about recruitment for men’s club at an upcoming Mass. Men’s Club would like to sell 350-400 tickets. Last year 340 tickets were sold and they had $17,000 in sponsorships. They would like to be able to cover $40,000 in sports fees every year.
Faith Formation:
Maria shared that they met February 10th with 6 in attendance.
YM Tina Schnarr just returned from a retreat and had a good experience. She has plans to do more social events, and include the parents more. She has 8-10 regulars whom attend youth ministry.
FF had discussed events at their meeting: the Lenten soup supper, First Holy Communion (May 9th), and a retreat in April for first communicants.
Tanya resigned to take a job with hospice but is continuing to work with OCIA. Her daily tasks are going to Bridgett for the time being.
FF has provided a bulletin insert for Lent - family activities for one week at a time will appear each week in the bulletin.
They spoke briefly about the Mission and not having it on St. Pattrick’s Day. The dates for the mission are the 15th and 16th (Sunday/Monday) Father Showredddy mentioned that Father Ben Syberg was slated to be the speaker.
New Business:
1st Topic:
Ja-Deen shared a fundraising policy that was instituted in 2008. Ja-Deen wanted to revisit this and see if we have any revisions. She noted that she receives requests for fundraisers frequently. Council members looked it over and shared feedback, highlighting that groups within or associated with St. Barnabas may be able to seek permission to fundraise in the narthex. (e.g. the Scout groups) Maria suggested if the ministry fair were to come back, we could let certain groups fundraise at that. Ja-Deen asked for members to think it over and we would revisit it.
Coffee and conversation was mentioned in regards to benefits for fellowship. Discussion led to bringing that back. Bobby said his wife Jennifer had been interested in coordinating.
2nd Topic: Fees
Some parishioners have been requesting funeral visitation here for their family members. When on-site visitation is held, it requires St. Barnabas staff members. Ja-Deen shared suggested fees for funeral visitations, livestreams, graveside service(suggested $50) to take effect July 1, 2026. Discussion followed about fair pricing and wording.
Currently it’s $100 to rent McNally Hall. This fee goes to the cleaning staff, not to the church. Ja-Deen proposed increasing this to help cover upkeep of/improvements to McNally Hall.
Wedding Fees: Looked at increasing this. Currently it’s $300. ($250 goes to the coordinator and $50 to the church) Training of sponsor couples is paid by the parish. This also led to a discussion about instituting charges for wedding prep done at St. Barnabas, even if the wedding ceremony itself isn’t held at St. Barnabas.
Maria mentioned instituting a Non-parishioner fee for weddings and baptisms.
From the prior meeting nominations, Amberlie accepted the nomination for secretary.
Father Showreddy closed the meeting by leading us in prayer.
The next Parish Council Meeting will be March 31 at 6:30 pm in the Hope Center.