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Meet the Parish Councils

Every organization, whether a Fortune 500 company, a small LLC, or a Catholic parish, needs advisory and administrative structure to accomplish its objectives. St. Francis of Assisi is blessed to have several Councils that offer advice and guidance on the well-being and growth of the faith community. These councils focus on the schools, our parish youth, the parish’s ‘Justice and Peace’ goals, the parish financial administration, and general parish governance.

The School Advisory Council (SAC) and the PreSchool Advisory Council (PAC) are the two councils covering the schools and serve as advisors to the principal at The Franciscan School (TFS) and the St. Francis Preschool Director. As Principal Dawn Smith says of the SAC, “The SAC plays a critical role in guiding the future of our school. Meeting monthly with the principal and pastor to discuss long-term goals and strategies, and mandated by the Diocese of Raleigh, this diverse group of parents and advocates of Catholic education ensures that the school remains faithful to its mission of serving students and families at the highest standards.” The SAC regularly seeks stakeholder feedback and has identified key focus areas in 2025. These include communication and transparency, parental involvement, middle school engagement, the school community and our faith-based mission, maintaining Catholic values, academic excellence and rigor, student support, and emphasizing the church and school connection. A strong school reflects well on the parish community, and the SAC helps advise the principal and pastor on building that strong presence.

“Similarly, the PAC,” as Director Heidi Hobler explains, “is designed as the visionary body to support the director by providing ideas for potential initiatives and programs to shape the preschool’s future and ensure that it continues to be a thriving ministry of the St. Francis community. Since the PAC is composed primarily of parents, the board can offer insight to the director about parent feedback and sentiment.” Heidi adds, “These people have their ‘boots on the ground’ with other parents and can offer a firsthand perspective on potential concerns, current goals, and any issues that may impact parents.” Often, they can receive information from their peers and get an honest perspective. “Although the administration maintains an open door policy,” says Heidi, “parents sometimes feel most at ease speaking first with another parent for perspective.” The focus for PAC this year is on continued parent involvement. They are looking for ways to encourage a renewal of parent volunteers at preschool. During COVID, the Family Engagement Committee (FEC) was dissolved due to the restrictions. This dissolution meant parent volunteers from committees (Hospitality, Little Francis CARES, Harvest Moon) that were part of the FEC were no longer active. “This school year,” says Heidi, “the PAC is working to identify potential volunteers, working with room parents to educate new parents on volunteer opportunities, and thinking about new/different ways for parents to connect!”

One of the advisory councils, arguably one of the most important for the parish’s future, is the Youth Advisory Council, or YAC. The YAC consists of 20 members of the Youth Ministry who are in high school and who advise Tim Hetzel, the parish Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry. Tim says, “The YAC has been invaluable to the recent success and revitalization of the Youth Ministry program at St. Francis. They workshop each youth night with me to ensure the program will be relatable to their peers. They facilitate games and activities and model participation in small groups, seeking to make everyone feel welcome. They also occasionally step up to speak in front of the large youth group to witness their faith and offer their personal faith perspective to their peers.” Looking ahead, Tim is excited about this relatively new council’s potential, “We will continue the progress we have made on being a hospitable and welcoming ministry while also focusing on increasing the YAC’s participation as prayer leaders to our youth and providing more opportunities for them to witness to their peers.” Engaging the youth of our parish is key to the future of St. Francis of Assisi parish and the larger Catholic Church, and the YAC is engaging in that mission!

Casey Slock coordinates the Justice and Peace ministries at St. Francis. She and JaVon Hansknecht, the Director of Justice and Peace, work with two advisory councils, the Justice and Peace Advisory Council and the Justice and Peace Grant Committee, to administer their functioning in support of our parish’s mission. “The Justice and Peace Advisory Council uses their knowledge and experience to provide valuable guidance on the functioning of the Justice and Peace department to more effectively support the parish in living out the social mission of the gospel,” says Casey, “especially given the constant changes to our human experience but the unchanged necessity of human dignity.” This effort includes evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the department, suggesting improvements, and serving as a sounding board for ideas. In 2025, Casey adds, “The committee will continue to evaluate the methods of engaging parishioners in Justice and Peace ministry and the success of adult and youth Catholic Social Teaching programming such as JustFaith and family formation service events.”

The Justice and Peace Grant Committee, formerly the Justice and Peace Tithe Committee, guides the use of Justice and Peace tithe funds to ensure they align with our Franciscan values of offering hope to those who hunger for human dignity and providing transparency to the parish. Reflecting the parish’s commitment to diversity and addressing many perspectives, Casey says, “The committee membership increased this year to represent the parish demographics better.” The J&P Grant Committee focuses on the review and recommendation process for this year’s organizational support. “Thorough research is being conducted on fifty-one organizations to ensure we are being good stewards of the Parish’s tithe to Justice and Peace initiatives.” From the beginning, the mission of the St. Francis of Assisi parish has been to bring Franciscan values to the larger community, and the Justice and Peace department, with their councils, ensures the effort to meet these goals continues.

Speaking of the tithe received from the offertory by Justice and Peace, one of our most influential councils is the Finance Council. By Canon Law, every Catholic parish in the world is required to have a Finance Council. The Council is an advisory body to the pastor on the ordinary and extraordinary aspects of the parish’s financial administration. As the Parish Director of Finance and Planning, Rob Neppel, says, “The relationship between the Council and the pastor should be supportive and collaborative. The Finance Council ensures that the Parish, including the church, schools, and columbarium, operates with financial integrity and within its financial resources.” Stewardship of the funds freely given by her parishioners for the functioning of the parish and its mission is a key responsibility of the St. Francis Finance Council. As Director, along with the pastor and finance council, Rob is tasked with the integrity and visibility of that process. As we enter 2025, Rob says there are several key focus areas for the council: “As the campus and buildings are aging, maintenance of the facilities and the cost of maintenance is increasing.” The parish conducted a ‘Capital Asset study’ before COVID-19, which looked at the Parish capital infrastructure and assessed maintenance costs over 20 years. “Since COVID,” says Rob, “we have seen maintenance costs double in price.” The parish was prescient in developing a ‘Maintenance Reserve’ to help address future costs. Rob says that due to the increased costs, “the focus this year will be to work with budget areas and budget managers to increase their contributions to the Reserve in the 2025-2026 fiscal year.” These funds will allow for the proper maintenance of our beautiful campus. As with any business, staff size and salaries are always a focus. “About 80% of the school and 50% of the Church budgets are tied to staff-related expenses,” says Rob. The challenge of retaining experienced staff and recruiting new staff is becoming more difficult in the current economic climate.  “Lastly, from a strategic standpoint,” adds Rob, “how we do a better job in getting the community more involved in the mission and ministries of the Church is always a centerpiece of the Finance Council’s efforts.”

Another of the vital groups responsible for advising the pastor of St. Francis is the Pastoral Council. Mae Villanueva, the chair of the Pastoral Council, says, “We are a diverse group intended to represent the different needs and views of parishioners. As such, the pastor may bring a question for us to consider, and we will discuss it. Sometimes, we seek out additional opinions from parishioners and then make a recommendation to the pastor. We also bring parishioner concerns to him and may go through a similar process of presenting an issue, discussing and undergoing discernment, and then recommending a course of action. In general, we serve as a voice of the parishioners to the pastor.” The Pastoral Council is the sounding board for the pastor and partners with the pastor to meet the needs of the families and individuals who form our parish.

When asked about what’s ahead in 2025, Mae clarifies, “We often address issues as they arise, so it can be challenging to look ahead to plan out our focus for the year. At the moment, however, we are engaging with Fr. Chris, as the new pastor at St. Francis, to review some of our parish processes and procedures and ensure they are effective.” “For example,” adds Mae, “we currently are evaluating the way and when we do Masses to ensure they are meeting the needs of our parishioners. We also have supported him in reviewing our parish roster to ensure everyone registered with the parish is a current parishioner.” This number dramatically impacts parish staffing and other budgetary and programmatic planning matters, including our goal for the BAA, so having an accurate parishioner count is essential. “As we move through 2025, we will continue to work with our pastoral plan oversight group and staff to ensure we are progressing towards our goal,” says Mae.

St. Francis of Assisi is a vibrant parish with a past steeped in faith and service and a bright future. As it enters its fifth decade of Catholic presence in our North Raleigh community, our future builds upon that past success thanks to the faithful and knowledgeable advice and guidance of our parishioners who serve on our councils. We thank those who have served and offer appreciation to those who will, in the future, answer the call to sit on our councils and guide us into that bright future!