March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Ellsworth church plans repairs> St. Joseph trying to raise $350,000 through capital campaign

ELLSWORTH — The stained-glass windows in St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church look fine from a distance. Solemn angels and vines intertwined with flowers splash cobalt blue, red, and aqua light across the dark wooden beams and pews of the Tudor-style interior.

But when Father Jim Michaud steps across and presses gently on the rectangular panes, the lead yields, pushing the fragile pattern of colored glass outward. The weakened lead makes the glass mosaics vulnerable to high winds and storms.

“If we don’t tend to it now, we’re sunk,” said Michaud.

Built in the 1930s, St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church has amassed a formidable list of needed repairs. This summer the congregation decided to launch a capital campaign to raise $350,000, enough to tackle all the repairs in one go.

Years ago, plexiglass was placed over the stained glass windows to protect them. Instead, the plexiglass trapped heat inside, softening the lead. The plexiglass has been removed, but many of church’s 14 windows now need to be re-leaded.

The Green Lake summer chapel and the road in Mount Calvary Cemetery also need maintenance work, and the Father Kenney Center, which houses the church offices, needs some pitch in its flat roof. Both the church roof and the roof on the Father Kenney Center leak. And burgeoning enrollment in Sunday school means the church is short of classroom space.

Six months into the campaign, the church has raised $180,000 toward its goal. And within the tan brick building, graced with ivy, repairs have already begun. The basement area has new bluish-gray carpeting, a fresh coat of white paint, and two additional classrooms for the 170 Sunday school students who now attend.

A leaf-shaped stained glass window depicting the Virgin and Child was restored this summer, and workmen have been replacing the green ceramic tiles on the roof for the past few weeks. To match the current tiles, new ones had to be made to order in Ohio for $28 each.

“We don’t want to ruin the architecture,” said Michaud. “That’s why it’s so expensive.”

St. Joseph has a congregation of 650 in a parish that stretches from Cherryfield to Blue Hill. It also offers meeting space to local groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and the Boy Scouts. Nonetheless, the campaign committee felt that funds should be requested primarily from church members. So far, more than a third of the families have contributed to the repairs.


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