MONTICELLO — Through three pastors, two rounds of pledges and a devastating hurricane, the parishioners of St. Mark Church in Monticello finally broke ground on their new sanctuary Jan. 18.
“We may see construction start in February or early March, depending on the weather,” said Charles Kremer, a member of the building committee. “And it’s possible we could be done by the end of the year.”
A large sanctuary was always part of the original plan for the parish. The present building is situated on a five-acre plot and was designed as a multi-purpose structure by the Glenmary brothers nearly 30 years ago. The interior of the small church can be partitioned by sliding screens, creating a cramped hall at the back of the sanctuary or four temporary classrooms.
Until the mid-1990s, the sanctuary was rarely full and the screens stayed closed because the hall space wasn’t needed during Mass.
Since 1994, a steady influx of Catholic families hired by the university and other large employers in the area swelled the congregation. In 1998, a classroom wing was added to the east side of the original building. Even with the addition of those eight classrooms, the number of children has continued to grow until classes still spill into the church hall for religious education on Wednesday nights.
Instead of half-empty pews on Sunday mornings, every folding chair available is squeezed into the hall area at the back of the sanctuary and the sliding screens are shoved wide open. The church is bursting at the seams.
“One of the big debates through the whole planning process has been the site,” said Melissa DeFee, a member of the planning committee who is also an architect. “When the congregation saw the architectural plans, many had an idea about where the new church should be built in relation to the existing building.”
The plans were drawn — and re-drawn — to reflect two options for the site and two options for the size of the church by Greg Peckham of Odom Peckham Architecture in Little Rock.
Finally, the congregation was polled and a site was selected north of the current structure. The contract went out to bid in the summer of 2005 and then Hurricane Katrina hit.
“Everyone went to Louisiana,” DeFee said. “We couldn’t find contractors and the contractors couldn’t find materials. The bids came in so high that construction was out of reach.”
While helping the huge number of Katrina evacuees in the Monticello area, St. Mark parishioners continued writing monthly pledge checks and supporting a variety of fundraising projects. Rummage sales, a cookbook, a compact disc, spaghetti dinners — the fundraising was relentless, but so was the cost of construction through the rest of 2005. Glenmary Home Missioners pledged a low-interest, $100,000 loan and a second pledge drive was planned for the congregation. After the Diocese of Little Rock took over the parish in June 2006, the building committee went into high gear with the arrival of pastor Father Phillip A. Reaves.
“We started looking for local contractors and the prices of construction materials had come down,” DeFee said. “We finally got bids that we could afford.”
A second round of pledges in December added up to around $60,000 — exactly the budget needed for interior furnishings. Two major fund-raising projects are in the works, including a second cookbook and eBay sales of donated goods through Bellelise Booksellers.
The new church will be 6,715 square feet, designed to seat 300 worshippers.
