This past spring, First Church embarked on a 3-year capital campaign with the goal of retiring the church’s mortgage by August 2025, the date when the current loan expires and either a balloon payment is due or the loan would have to be re-negotiated. As a wonderful reflection of the generosity of this congregation, $430,513 was pledged to the campaign! And of this amount, $225,263 has already been received!
As of the end of October 2023, the outstanding principle on the mortgage has been reduced to $233,120. For those of you who weren’t involved with the church in 2010 when our new home opened, the original mortgage was $1.8 million. We are so close to being debt-free!
Based on the pledges made and funds received to-date, we fully expect to pay off the mortgage by August 2025. If there are any campaign funds that remain after the mortgage is retired, they will be held in reserve for use by the church’s Trustees to make repairs to our building which is a growing need as we enter our 15th year at 180 Denny Way.
We are grateful to all those who made pledges as part of this year’s capital campaign as well as those who have given to the previous mortgage reduction campaigns. If you haven’t fulfilled your pledge for 2024, we would appreciate you doing so by the end of December. And if you weren’t able to make a pledge earlier this year, we welcome new pledges as they will help ensure that we not only retire the mortgage but keep the church building in good working order.
Greg Wallace and Jim Schone
Debt-free Future Campaign Co-chairs