You might recognize this young couple from their many hours of volunteering at our parish. Their participation at Mass is evident…sometimes as servers, sometimes as ushers or Eucharistic Ministers. They seem to always be aware of the needs and step up to help.

What you might not know is that they lead also weekly discipleship group of Hispanic teens. About a dozen kids (ages 14-18) meet with Monica and Israel every Thursday evening. They usually do an hour of fun activities, ranging from playing sports outside to charade games to water gun fights. After that they do about an hour of readings from the Bible followed by discussions.

Monica and Israel are both bi-lingual so they can easily help clarify some of the concepts from the Bible passages which are read in English. Monica and Israel met at Badger High School. They are currently attending Gateway College and both are working toward nursing degrees. Monica also works at Burlington Memorial Hospital as a CNA on the medical/surgical floor. Israel was recently certified as an EMT and will soon be working with the Lake Geneva Fire Department. In his “spare” time he also works at Oakfire restaurant in Lake Geneva.

They are very dedicated altar servers and have volunteered for many special liturgies as well as help to train the younger altar servers. What is their favorite Mass? Israel says “By far the Easter Vigil. I love how the Mass goes from darkness to light. You can feel the joy in everyone’s hearts that Jesus has risen”.

Our parish is blessed to have such special people as Monica and Israel lighting the way for our youth. Please let them know how grateful we are for all that they do the next time you see them at Mass! 

Meet Will Murray, St. Francis de Sales’ summer college intern! Will is currently a sophomore at St. Mary’s University of Winona, Minnesota, majoring in Theology. The son of very active parish volunteers, Tom and Kathie Murray, Will attended SFDS grade school from 4k thru 8th grade. He is a graduate of Catholic Central High School. Will is an avid fisherman and also enjoys bowling and golfing.

Will is planning on helping out with the religious education programs this summer. Under the direction of Michael Deane, he will be assisting the staff for the children’s Vacation Bible School and also will be attending Stuebenville with the high school kids. In addition he will be helping to organize, file, and do some computer work. He has some new things he hopes to introduce as well. “During my first year at college there were many opportunities for college students to be involved with the Church. Some of the opportunities I attended at St Mary’s, of which I hope to bring to St Francis, are Fitness&Witness and Cor Jesu. Fitness&Witness gives high school and college students an opportunity to be active during the week and also gives the participants the opportunity to be a witness to God’s Word. Cor Jesu, meaning the Body of Christ, is recognized and utilized throughout the United States. Cor Jesu gives people the opportunity to participate in Adoration with Christian contemporary music, have confession, either have Mass or listen to the day’s readings, and finally having an ice cream hospitality afterwards.”

We are very grateful that Will is volunteering his time and talent this summer at our parish. What does he hope to get out of it? “My hope is that during my internship I will find out whether working in a Catholic Parish is the route I will take post-college.” We are thrilled to have a person of Will’s age and experience to work with the youth in our parish this summer. Please give him a warm welcome! 

Daryl has quietly been steering the administrative side of St. Francis de Sales parish for 20 years! Joining the parish with his wife Geri in December of 1996, he was asked by Father Dave Braun to Co-Chair the Finance committee right off the bat in 1997. He has also been the Treasurer Trustee on and off since 2002 (often stepping up when someone could not serve), and, after taking a break from 2006 to 2012, he is currently serving our parish in that capacity.

Daryl has been the catalyst for setting up many systems within our parish to create more efficient accounting, including Quick Books and Excel. He has conducted stewardship surveys and extracts information from the parish database for mailings and other studies. He created a system for invoicing tuitions. He was a tremendous help in establishing our Parish email database. He works with the finance committee on the parish budget and watches carefully for trends or issues. He works carefully with our office manager on all types of data entering and analysis.

Most recently he served on the Project 2017 committee and is a consultant in the School Choice program. Daryl has a degree in electrical engineering from Marquette University, but his career took him down the business management path. What you might not know is that Daryl is also a very talented woodworker, and has donated this “talent” to SFDS as well.

His projects include the cabinet in the sacristy, the corner table in the conference room, the window in the confessional door, the sink area in the sacristy, the sacrarium, and more. His most recent creation was to modify the Hymn board (that he originally built in 2006) with a drawer at the bottom to hold all of the number cards—genius!

Thank you Daryl for all that you do for our parish! We so appreciate all of your hard work in keeping St. Francis de Sales technologically up to date and for all of your beautiful woodwork donations. Most of all, we appreciate your steady support—always with a smile!

   If you regularly attend the 7:30 Sunday Mass, there’s a good chance you received Holy Communion from Elaine Johnson. Being a Eucharistic minister is just one of the many ways Elaine has chosen to serve our parish.

      Elaine works at the Keefe Realty office on Edwards Boulevard office assisting real estate agents with most of the paperwork associated with real estate transactions. “ I have a realty license because I am required to have one in order to show real estate but I am more involved in doing the clerical details and assisting agents”, she told us recently. One of those agents is Elaine’s daughter, Debbie Cobian. Elaine also has three other grown children  another daughter and two sons.

     Elaine’s faith journey began with being raised Catholic, receiving the sacraments, getting married at a young age, having four children and being a wife and mother. But then it took a turn. A difficult marriage contributed to her being less active in the church and eventually to finding herself a divorced mother with four children. Her journey back to a more active faith life came with guidance from our former pastor, Father Dave Braun. He encouraged her to take the steps necessary to clarify her marital status and to get involved in the RCIA.

     Since her return to active membership in the church, Elaine has found many ways to contribute to our parish family. In addition to being a Eucharistic minister Elaine regularly launders the albs worn by the altar servers. She has been active in Catholic Daughters and has served as an officer in that organization. Her involvement with Catholic Daughters led her to co-chair the Prayer Shawl Ministry.  Women who knit or crochet make shawls for those who are in need of comfort due to illness, loss of a loved one, emotional distress or birth of a new baby. While producing the shawls, the women pray for those who will receive them and then pray when presenting the shawls. Elaine’s commitment to serving others is reflected in part of that prayer : “May the Holy Spirit guide us as we share of our time, talents, prayers and love in this Prayer Shawl Ministry.”

There is a special someone who has written articles highlighting many of our wonderful parishioners. The time has come for us to get to know the lady who has been the author of these articles, Martha Cucco.

Although she was born in Chicago, she spent almost every weekend in Lake Geneva as a child. Martha often went to Mass at St. Benedict’s in the wee hours of the morning to accommodate her father’s passion for sailing and ice boating. In 1990, Martha, her husband Rich and their two daughters moved to Lake Geneva full time. They enrolled their girls into St. Francis de Sales grade school and quickly became part of the community. Martha was on Home & School, the School Advisory Board, chaired the advent breakfast, was a Girl Scout leader, the “picture lady” and yes, even coached cheerleading for 6 years.

Once her children were a little older, Martha needed to get back to her musical roots. With a degree in Music Therapy and Classical Piano, she was quite happy to be singing again in the SFDS Chorale under the mentorship of Teresa Kiefer. Today she is a dedicated choir member as well as cantor for early mass, weddings and funerals. Martha also volunteers with the children’s choir at school mass each week. She has been a volunteer with the Art and Environment Committee, a cast member in the Sound of Music, worked on the Fall Festival and the Reverse Raffle, was on the search committee for the Director of Liturgy and Music, hosts the annual music ministry picnic, and coordinated the volunteer appreciation boat cruises.

Inspired by a book called “Rebuilt” which Bishop Schuerman had recommended, she next took on the Stewardship committee. This led to establishing on-line giving, helping to design the new website, developing new tools for volunteers and ministries, and maintaining social media and other marketing for the parish. The Lord seemed to continually steer her towards a bigger project, Project 2017 to be exact. Martha became extremely interested in the history of St. Francis de Sales through her involvement with the 150th anniversary of the church in ’92 and while compiling information for the past 2 parish directories. She spent hours going through old files and microfiche, researching our faith community and our place of worship. She found out that while our parish will be 175 years old this year, a windstorm claimed the original church building. The old photos and records sparked an inspiration in her. She asked Bishop Schuerman if he would consider resurrecting the church restoration plan in time for the 175th anniversary. After much consideration, Bishop Schuerman decided to move forward and Project 2017 was brought to life. According to Martha, this has been a truly spiritual process. From the formation of the committee to the amazing support from our faith community, it has exceeded all expectations. When asked what she was most pleased with on the restoration project, Martha said she is “so happy with the number of people participating in this process, the depth of talent of all of the individuals on the committee, and the relationships and friendships that have been formed as a direct result of Project 2017.”

When Martha is not at SFDS, she loves working as a real estate broker in Lake Geneva. She is also the past president of the Lake Geneva Garden Club, sings in the Milwaukee Archdiocesan Choir, co-author of two books on Lake Geneva History, and currently a volunteer with the Lake Geneva chapter of the Lyric Opera.

She is a lady who has a talent for putting the right people together for a specific purpose. Her style of leadership is quiet and she lifts up those who are working with her. Her positive attitude stems from a strong intuition which she no longer questions. “It will all work out”, is one of her sayings and it is always accompanied with a smile.

When asked what she will do once the restoration is complete, she said, “I’m a little worried about adjusting to having all of this extra time, but I’m looking forward to spending a lot of it with my new granddaughter!”