To give you a sense of how crazy life has been with the COVID pandemic and starting an active ministerial year with Fall 2021, I have now just finished the 2020 Review of Newman Hall-Holy Spirit Parish. Though no one was asking how we did in 2020 during the heart of the COVID lock down, but for the sake of those needing some insomnia reading or those who love their parish and cannot know enough about what is happening, I finished the 2020 report. Maybe it will have historical value when some future PhD researcher will want to know how one parish, Newman Hall, handled the pandemic.
We basically did amazingly well given we were closed most of the year and mainly live streamed our Masses and other liturgies. We did move to outdoor public patio Masses later in the year and endured Bay Area winter cold and rain to praise our God. We Newman Catholics are tough and are not going to allow a tiny virus to keep us from praising our God.
Financially, we only had a deficit of $8,753 while still paying all our employees, even those who were at home, and paying all our financial commitments. Thank you everyone who quickly moved to sending us weekly checks or joined our electronic giving through FaithDirect or Venmo.
On page 6-9, you can see we kept a lot of ministry going through ZOOM or meeting outdoors with social distancing and masks. We even started some new ministries like CONNECT. We truly have a vibrant community and no virus is going to keep us down. Praise be to God.