The World of Grandpa Don

The Web Ministry of
St Julie Billiart Roman Catholic Church
of
The Years 2010 and Before

The following is an article from the St Julie Parish Bulletin of Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time August 8, 2010.

Many of you know Don Plefka. He’s been a member of the parish for a very long time and he has been instrumental in the creation of our on-line parish web site. In 1998 he came across a web site posted by the American Bible Association which advertised a goal to provide a web presence for every Christian church in North America. On the Association’s web site there was a blank page into which could be inserted the information about your own parish. Don took information from our parish bulletin and inserted it into the Association’s form and voila: St. Julie Billiart had its first web site. When Don told the pastor at the time, Father Homa, that the parish had a web page, Father asked “What’s that?” (Ah, how far we’ve come since those days!)

Fast forward a bit and Don learned—on his own—a little of the web site programming language and he decided that St. Julie needed to expand the amount of information on its web page. He bought some web building software and trained himself to use it in order to expand the parish site on the internet. As he put more and more information into this web page, Don was told that he exceeded the size limitations, so he made the decision to move on. That’s when www.stjulie.org was born. Kevin Stasik was a big help to Don as they made the move to a site totally dedicated to our parish.

From there, our web site has continued to grow. Assisting Don is Bob Lewis, Liz Frankenbach and Karen Peterson (and before he moved to Indiana, Joe Beaulieu). We owe so much to Don, the original “godfather” of our parish web site. He took on this task and the responsibilities connected with it since the start of the St. Julie web presence in 1998. He is now “retiring” from that lay ministry.

With some wonderful final assistance from Don, the godfather of the St. Julie web site, Adam Fischer is constructing a successor web site. On or just shortly after August 9, when you click on www.stjulie.org, you will see a newly revamped web site.

One of the new features of this revamped web site will be the provision of a link which will enable you to authorize an automatic debit from your checking account (either monthly or weekly) in lieu of your Sunday envelop to St. Julie. You will also be able to make electronic payments for Religious Education tuition and other donations to the parish. Electronic giving is something our parish Finance Council has been urging us to make available to our parishioners. All of the surrounding parishes have encouraged their own parishioners to set up electronic giving.

 We couldn’t do this without the dedicated work of lay volunteers like Don, Adam, Bob, Liz and Karen. Thank you so much, to our “web servants.” Thanks to all those who go on line to check out the virtual St. Julie Billiart parish. Currently, it’s a great site. After August 9, it’ll be new and improved. None of it could have happened without dedicated lay involvement over the years, like that of our “godfather.” Thanks, Don!

~ Fr Steve

Many thanks go to Fr. Steve (Rev. Steven M. Lanza) and the parish staff. As the web site developed I was dismayed by the seeming lack of interest shown by the parish staff in providing content for the web site. But they had their work to do and web site design was not part of that. I began to realize that they trusted me to handle the web site and that was the greatest complement they could give to me. I, in turn, thank the parish for the opportunity to use what talent I have in the service of the parish and of God. It has been a joy. (And ... Thank You, God.)

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