Pastor’s Letter & July 25 Bulletin

Pastor’s Letter & July 25 Bulletin

23 Jul 2021 | Posted by: chadmin

The July 25 bulletin is now available online. 

Dear friend,

As we approach a new academic year at St. Philomena, we are processing all that we need to do and be to have a safe, effective, and faith-filled school year.  While we still have some Covid-19 protocols to establish for the year, we are thinking about all the opportunities to help families fund a Catholic education at St. Philomena School.  One of the gifts of a parochial school is that the parish supports the next generation with a solid Catholic school education.  We take a lot of pride in our school and the excellence offered to each child. While St. Philomena Parish subsidizes the school, it is still necessary that parents pay tuition for their students to attend our school. The cost of tuition can be an obstacle to some families in our community. For this reason, we are always looking for opportunities to decrease the financial burden on our families.

In addition to the tuition assistance provided by St. Philomena Parish and the Diocese of Peoria, private school students in Illinois now qualify for the Invest in Kids State Tax Scholarship Program. Hopefully you already know the benefit to this program for the giver, the student receiving the scholarship and for St. Philomena School. In our desire to increase donations to the Invest in Kids program, through the Empower Illinois Scholarship Granting Organization, the St. Philomena Finance Council voted to extend a tuition reduction to any family that donates a specific amount to Empower Illinois.

A few weeks ago, we held a meeting to explain Invest in Kids, Empower Illinois, and the St. Philomena Tuition reduction to some of our interested parents. We now want to extend this information and opportunity now to any Illinois tax payer who desires to help St. Philomena School and a St. Philomena student. Not only will donors to Empower Illinois receive a direct State Tax Credit of 75% of your donation but the family or student of your choice will receive a 10% credit of the donated amount subtracted from the billed tuition for this school year. The donation deadline for the 10% reduction in tuition is September 1, 2021. Our goal through this effort is to raise a total of $225,000. This amount will fund all 83 kids who received notification of scholarship qualification; yet are waiting for funding. This opportunity is a win for all those who donate, anyone paying St. Philomena tuition and the students who receive Empower Illinois funding. The meeting that explained this process, including a presentation by Dan Kelly of the St. Philomena Finance Council, was video recorded for your review. A link to the video is provided here:  https://youtu.be/iVhbM3gZjqs.

The donation process requires a few steps. It begins by establishing a MyTax Illinois ID, which can take a few weeks for processing. There are also two videos that walk you through each step of the process and they are included here. If you are a New Donor: https://youtu.be/LR2v2slg83U. Returning Donors with a MyTax Illinois account number have fewer steps to subsequent donations: https://youtu.be/a2Jt8eHlLVU.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to either of us with any questions you may have about the process or this year’s tuition incentive for donors. Thank you so much for your continued support of our school! For additional details on Empower Illinois, visit  https://empowerillinois.org.

God bless,

Father David Richardson (frdprichardson@sphils.com )

Mr. Jack Dippold (jackdipp@stphils.com )