New Catholic center aids local community

By Sun Advocate

The newly constructed Catholic Center on Carbon Avenue will soon be operational, allowing the church much needed room and facilities for hosting events, programs and classes.
The Notre Dame Catholic Church has been standing on the corner of Second North and Carbon Avenue since 1923. And for the first time the church is expanding its reach across the street where the new Catholic center will enable the parish to host a more expansive variety of services and events ranging from wedding receptions, banquets and fund raisers to religious education classes and seminars.
According to Father Don Hope, pastor of the Notre Dame Catholic Church, the new center cost nearly $2 million in total.
“We were able to use the proceeds from the sale of the Notre Dame school which totaled $500,000 to help fund the project,” said Hope. “The rest of the money came from charitable donations within the community.”
Since the closing of the Notre Dame school the church hasn’t had a centralized location to perform their services. According to hope, the center will once again give the parish a home base for operations.
“Not only will the building give us much needed room for religious classes but it will also be the new home for the Community Lifeline Pregnancy Program,” said Lisa Pehler, church secretary.
According to Sara Pia, manager of Lifeline, the program has been functional since 1999 and is a non profit, donation driven project that open to everyone in the Castle Valley community.
“The Lifeline Pregnancy program has been a very successful way for us to reach out to the community and help support women facing unplanned pregnancies by giving them various options other than abortion,” said Pia. “We help with an assortment of challenges that people face when dealing with an unplanned pregnancy, including assistance for the purchasing of important necessities like cribs, food, diapers, baby clothes and other such amenities. We also provide adoption services for certain cases.”
According to Pia, the pregnancy hotline allows individuals to call in with any questions about related matters.
The telephone line is manned 24 hours a day and may be reached by calling 636-0700.
The program performs pregnancy testing by appointment and is available to anyone residing in the local community.
“Along with our administrative and education aspects, the new center will also be the new home of our annual Oktoberfest fundraiser along with several new events that will be planned and announced in the weeks to come,” said Hope. “We feel that the new center will be a big success and want to thank everyone in the community who has helped to make this project a winner. We anticipate the center to be operational within the next two weeks.”