A message from Fr. Jon Seda, chaplain of St. Stephen the Witness at UNI:

Thank you for your support of our Catholic campus ministry! We could not provide this for our students without strong support from the larger Church. Our annual budget is about $378,000. We obviously do not get this from the students! Community members who come to St. Stephen for Mass contribute about $138,000 each year. We receive about $52,000 from an annual appeal to alumni, parents and friends, and about $23,000 from endowment income. We do not receive any ongoing support from the Archdiocese. This means we raise about $165,000 from other sources. The annual budgeted income line from parish visits is about $25,000.

You may know that 93% of UNI students come from Iowa and many return to our Iowa parishes after graduation. With all the money that we spend on faith formation and Catholic schools, it is just as important that the Church has a strong and vibrant presence in their college years. This is a critical time in the faith development of our young people. What we do here matters. What we do here works. What we do here can happen only with the support of the larger Church.

Fr. Seda will be at all Masses in the linkage on June 1-2. Please support the collection for his ministry. Checks should be made out to St. Stephen the Witness.