TELCO

First Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church JUNE-JULY

2020

In this issue:

Council Meeting 1, 4 Pastoral Letter 2 Daycare Back up and Running 3 Birthdays/Anniv 4

Honoring our Graduates 5 Council Chooses to go with PPP Loan 6 Daycare Awarded Two Grants 8

Council Meeting June 29—you are invited

As you know, virtually everything on the usual summer calendar of Wells-ville has been cancelled: the Great Balloon Rally, Music on the Lawn, the Allegany County Fair, just to name a few. The COVID-19 pandemic has made planning anything nearly impos-sible, since we cannot project the cir-cumstances in which we will be oper-ating. However, I think that we could reasonably plan for a drive-thru Sau-erkraut Supper. There is much to dis-cuss. The next church council meeting will be that place. The discussion is open to all congregants because this has always been a full participation event. We are eager to entertain ide-as, solutions, and innovations con-cerning the Sauerkraut Supper. Let’s see what we can do to combine tradi-tion and survival without losing track of the goals of fellowship, witness and also, fundraising. Don’t be a Monday morning quarterback, come get in the game! This is your opportunity to

help steer the Supper into the future.

If you are sick or hospitalized and would like the pastor to vis-it, please contact the church of-

fice.

Thank you! 593-3311

Congratulations

Graduates

Worship Services are Sundays at

10:30 a.m.

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July Pastoral Letter

Dear Trinity Members and Friends:

As we begin again to publish TELCO, our congregation’s newsletter, the pasto-ral letter this month will give some consideration to the purpose of news-letters and how they can accomplish their goals. As I work with TELCO, I think of the content being something like what I am winsomely dubbing “The Old MacDonald Method,” or E-I-E-I-O for short. That is to say, our newsletter should:

E – Evangelize: When a visitor picks up a printed copy of our newsletter in the narthex, or a potential visitor comes across it while surfing the net, the news-letter should create the impression that this is a friendly, active, faithful con-gregation of which they would like to be a part. The overall mood will be dis-tinctively positive and upbeat, with an emphasis on all the good things hap-pening at Trinity Church. We will celebrate events in the recent past and thank those who made them possible. Especially we will be looking toward what will be happening in the near future.

I -- Inform: The newsletter will share accurate information about the times for our Divine Service and Sunday School, how to contact the pastor and church office, and the dates, times and nature of upcoming meetings and events. We want to do that in an inviting, welcoming way. Things such as summaries of Council actions, prayer lists, birthday and anniversary lists, etc., will also be in-cluded. Sharing tidbits of interesting happenings and events in the lives of church members will help keep our members connected and helps build and maintain relationships and fellowship.

E – Educate: The newsletter can be one way of sharing knowledge about Christ and his church with our members in an accessible way through pastoral letters and brief articles.

I -- Inspire: Devotions, verses of scripture, and inspirational quotes may also appear in the newsletter.

O – Other: There will be reminders to practice good stewardship. Jokes,

crossword puzzles, Sudokus, Word Searches, games for children, etc. will be

added to the newsletter when we can.

continued

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As pastor, I I take personal responsibility for everything that gets published by Trinity Church. We will be sure that what we publish is in accord with the teaching of the church and does not breach confidentiality or be offensive.

As for how the newsletter is produced: The formatting, typesetting, and printing of the newsletter would be the parish secretary’s responsibility with input from the pastor. Committee chairs, officers and other members would submit items to her for possible publication. We will be setting a deadline for submissions. Wordsmithing is my passion, so I don’t mind writing for the newsletter.

TELCO and Connections have both been excellent. Together we can keep up that fine tradition and use our communications here at Trinity Church to help expand the King-dom of God.

Pastor Ash

Daycare – Back Up and Running

After an approximate two-month shut-down, daycare with its laughter and cries, is alive, noisy, lively, and busy.

As parents are gradually returning to their jobs, their children are increasingly back in day-care. Staff are working somewhat reduced days being aligned with number of children in each age group. The baby room is not yet at former full capacity, but there is a looming problem of an overflow of babies as summer continues and fall begins. This is a good prob-lem, yet most perplexing as all want spots in our baby room. The licensing mandates a ratio of 4 babies to one adult or 8 babies for two adults. Our requests number many more than 8. It is hoped that licensing will allow a waiver to accommodate more in a near-by area to the current baby room.

With the current safety protocol in place, all personnel and parents are following the rules – masks, distancing,… Parents do not enter the building, but do drop-off and/or pick-up of children at the entranceway. Child temperatures are taken at arrival and departure. The children have really learned about germs; proper handwashing is followed faithfully. It is fortunate it’s summer – no winter clothing, boots, no mittens; no waiting in the cold at the door.

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Church Council Meeting – Open to All

Council is meeting on Monday, June 29th at 6:30 pm. This is the time to really find out what’s going on. This is not our normal time-of-month meeting, but as we readjust during these strange pandemic times, we will eventually return to 4th Mondays.

The BIG TOPIC for this meeting is SAUERKRAUT DINNER Call it a discus-

sion and decision of yes – no – maybe – what. There are numerous pros and cons. May-be it’s time for a change, but that is said with a question mark. Everyone’s comments need to be heard by Council – and RESPECTED. Ultimately, and adhering to our By-Laws framework, the decision is a Council vote. We will deviate from Robert’s Rules of Order for this topic. Normally Robert states motion first, then discussion. In this scenario, we will put the cart before the horse with discussion first, then a motion and vote. A deci-sion will be made as we all need to know the direction we are taking.

Council – Monday, June 29th – 6:30 pm

July Birthdays

2 Linda Hurd 6 Shelly Dunne 6 Dena Helms 8 Nikki Helmer 8 Rich Shear 9 Steve Hand 10 Allison Culbertson 11 Mae Joyce 14 Liz Wilson 18 Reita Lynch 21 Christina Wightman

24 Pete Farwell 25 Lori Holevinski 25 Kristen Kruger 26 Bill Fahs 27 Pam Duttweiler 29 Harper Joyce 31 Gabriella Helms

July Anniversaries

3 Reita & Terry Lynch 3Deb & Paul Vossler 4 Sally & Fred Dannheim 9 Janet & John Vargo 13 Liz & Rev Bill Willson 18 Judy & Tom Brainard 24 Betty & Marvin Wood

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Honoring Our Graduates……………. Loralai, Taylor, Nathan

Our congregation proudly recognizes three of our members who are graduating from high school this June – Loralai Crawford,

Taylor Hurd, and Nathan Miles.

Loralai, daughter of Andy and Kristen Crawford, will be gradu-ating from Wellsville High School. Wellsville’s ceremony will take place at the Wellsville Airport, cars with their families appropriately distanced, the graduates walking the stage to receive their diplo-mas. Throughout her school days, Loralai has been most active, participating in sports – softball, musical theater, and National Honor Society and has earned several academic awards. In August she will be matriculating at the University of Rochester majoring in a pre-med track with a focus on bio-medical engineering and a mi-nor in political science. Her goal is to eventually work in the pros-

thetics field with veterans.

Nathan, son of Kelly Nichols, grandson of Judy and Tom Brainard, graduates from Canandaigua Academy. His graduation will be held at Bristol Mountain, a ski resort. He and his fellow 300 peers in groups of forty will go by ski-lift to the mountain top to re-ceive their diplomas. With his interest in robotics, coding and computer programming, Nathan will pursue mechanical engineer-ing at Alfred University. Nathan enjoys music, has been a member of a Music Honor Society in high school, plays guitar, and is cur-rently building his own guitar. With his love of cooking, his mother

is quick to say his chicken parmigiana is the best.

Taylor, daughter of Annie Ball, granddaughter of Arnold and Linda Hurd, will soon be a Wellsville High graduate. She is most pleased that a live graduation is going to happen during these un-certain times. Her high school finale will be at the Wellsville Airport site. Elementary Education at Roberts Wesleyan, Rochester, is her destiny for the fall. Throughout her school days, her big love has been swimming, although she has also participated in track. At the recent virtual school awards recognition she received at 20-point

letter. At college she will continue her swimming.

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Trinity commends our graduates. Their senior year has been quite different – none of the traditional events took place … no senior trip, no prom, and even no senior “skip” day. Yet, they walk with honor in-to the future, each with challenging and achievable goals, and with the warm support of their proud families. This is a graduation year

never to be forgotten.

Our three 2020 graduates were together as confirmands, confirmed

by Pastor Morris.

Left to right: Nathan Miles, Pastor Morris, Taylor Hurd, Loralai Craw-

ford.

Council Chooses to Go with PPP

A Preface to this Article – This may be more detail than necessary or want to know, or perhaps not enough detail. Whichever the case, questions and/or more explanation may easily be obtained by contacting Linda Gridley or Carol English.

Acting after a thorough discussion, Church Council voted to take advantage of the fed-eral government PPP, the Payroll Protection Program. This is fiscal support during this pan-demic time not only for businesses, but non-profit organizations such as churches. Many Eastern District churches have applied for and accepted these monies. The Eastern District has advocated participation and provided instructional information at several zoom meetings. A survey poll taken at a recent zoom showed 55% involvement of our ED congregations.

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Simply stated, this is a program by documented application for readily available money to assist businesses/non-profits in returning their employees to work, hav-ing sufficient cash flow in paying wages, when income is down due to pandemic times. With thoughts of the church, any church scenario, income (offerings) have suffered decreases due to church closures; yet upon reopening church doors, as clergy and church workers once again return to work, they must be paid. The same is true for our daycare. Staff are re-employed, children gradually return, and there must be cash flow available for salaries. This is not money in the form of unemploy-ment benefits or for those who were not entitled to unemployment, but monies to directly assist the businesses/organizations in regaining a solid fiscal base and sub-sequently ensuring workers payroll income.

By meeting certain stipulations, at best to a high degree, the loaned monies may be forgiven, not paid back. If payback is necessary, interest is 1%. Upon the forgiveness application process, it will be determined the amount the business/organization will need to payback. The main goal is to return employees to work; this tracked through two comparison periods; i.e. pre-pandemic time period vs the current time. The percentage of restored wages is another requirement. These fac-tors will indicate the amount of forgiveness.

At least 60% of the loaned money must be used for wages; up to 40% for non-wages; i.e. utilities such as gas, electric, water, internet, phone. Payroll costs for the church that we must continue to underwrite are FICA, Workers Compensation In-surance; however, Pastor’s health insurance, retirement, and disability are covered.

Our church received $76,236; this amount pre-determined as based on the gov-ernment’s formula of the average 2019 monthly payroll multiplied by 2.5. Paychex-Rochester in doing our payroll has been most instrumental in maintaining all the re-quired accountability for the original application and is continuing to do so for the forgiveness application. In monitoring all so far within this 8-week loan period lead-ing to the forgiveness application (in mid-July), it is anticipated that:

we will use approximately $55,000, return approximately $20,000 that will re-main unused

we will have a very major part “forgiven” – a bonus to our treasury.

With the advice of Paychex and Community Bank, a special checking account has been temporarily set up to keep accountability separate from our other church monies.

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Daycare Awarded Two Grants

The Allegany County United Way has allocated two sizable grants to our daycare. This is the third consecutive year Trinity has received monies contrib-uted by local people and organizations to the United Way.

The larger amount of $17,000 is to assist families with weekly childcare tuition payments. The families often fall in the cracks, just above county subsidy but with difficulties in affording the full fees. Accountability is key in passing along these funds to parents. An application process must be followed with documentation for income, any hardships, or other issues. The daycare board acts in a very confidential way on approving each request. Consistent weekly payments to the daycare are required in order for families to continue receiving these monies. All the grant money is passed on to the families as stipulated by the grant stipulations.

The second grant, $3,121, is for continued staff training to enhance literacy with the children. Our staff gals are well trained for supervision and care of the wee ones, but literacy is more in-depth realm requiring more knowledge and skills. This past year the staff profited from literacy training dealing with books – more appropri-ate skills in reading and relating a book with various activities with the children. That grant was for $2,266. This new grant focuses on spoken language, using and under-standing vocabulary, having quality conversations, and expanding word knowledge. Quality training is expensive in that it is best accomplished by utilizing knowledgeable presenters from the Buffalo area. The daycare has established a link with the Western New York Infant Toddler Network – Buffalo, engaging two excellent trainers. They will be on-site for three sessions sharing their skills and interacting with our staff.

The daycare is most thankful to the United Way and the many people who sup-port our county’s UW initiatives. Without this funding, our daycare would be at a con-siderable loss in supporting our needy families and providing quality training to our staff. The UW’s grant application process is very detailed and lengthy with much fol-low-up accountability and documentation for using the designated monies. The Unit-ed Way serves as an integral agency within our community.