Author Topic: How Clean is Your Church? (Read 2656 times)

Aleah · « **on:** February 26, 2014, 02:45:23 PM »

The church that I attend struggles with obtaining volunteers to clean the church and help with the grounds.

For the month of February, only one person signed up on the cleaning roster. Not a family- just one person!

Does your parish have this problem?

Marlelar · « **Reply #1 on:** February 26, 2014, 04:55:12 PM »

As far as cleaning the chapel itself, in Phx there is a group of women who rotate the duties and I've never heard of them being short-handed. I don't know about the grounds though, I don't ever see any "help needed" requests in the bulletin.

Marsha

Aleah · « **Reply #2 on:** February 26, 2014, 05:07:07 PM »

Quote from: Marlelar

As far as cleaning the chapel itself, in Phx there is a group of women who rotate the duties and I've never heard of them being short-handed. I don't know about the grounds though, I don't ever see any "help needed" requests in the bulletin.

Marsha

So, I guess the bigger questions is, shouldn't everyone volunteer for their parish in some way?

Cantarella · « **Reply #3 on:** February 26, 2014, 05:13:03 PM »

My parish is clean and tidy. We have plenty of parishioners that volunteer their time.

Marlelar · « **Reply #4 on:** February 26, 2014, 05:16:36 PM »

Quote from: Aleah

So, I guess the bigger questions is, shouldn't everyone volunteer for their parish in some way?

I guess it depends on the size of the chapel. Larger ones probably don't need "everyone" to volunteer, but I'm sure the small ones do. What state are you in? How many people come to Mass?

Marsha

Frances · « **Reply #5 on:** February 26, 2014, 10:04:15 PM »

:dancing-banana:
It varies. Sometimes many sign up and show up to clean. Sometimes those who signed don't show up. Other times, hardly anyone bothers to do either. It seems to be "all or nothing" when it comes to cleanliness and tidiness. When the corners resemble Collyer's mansion, a few people get disgusted and do a clean sweep that involves generous contributions to the dumpsters. Then the owners of the "stuff" get angry at the people who threw it out. The poor priest gets stuck with all their complaints. On one occasion, the priest himself cleaned out the refrigerator in the parish hall. After removing a whole rotten raw chicken and pre-Conciliar English muffins, he left the rest to we women. Much of the clutter problem stems from not having sufficient room. The rest comes from people who leave their belongings behind and never claim them.
One solution is to have a monthly Lost 'n Found Auction. A school where I taught did this. It was amazing how many families had so much stuff, they couldn't be bothered to claim it. I have some nice Tupperware as a result!

crossbro · « **Reply #6 on:** February 26, 2014, 10:09:15 PM »

I won't complain or comment- I don't want to get pushed into volunteering.

Mabel · « **Reply #7 on:** February 26, 2014, 10:40:02 PM »

Families don't always have the luxury of time to drive to a chapel and help clean.

The way I've seen many chapels start out is that a few old or single people take everything over in the beginning, push the families out and then they get burnt out and want the families to step in.

It doesn't work that way. Families often have little they can offer and a short window of time in which they can offer it. I know we are incapable of doing what we once did with only one or two children.

crossbro · « **Reply #8 on:** February 27, 2014, 12:02:02 AM »

Quote from: Mabel

Families don't always have the luxury of time to drive to a chapel and help clean.

The way I've seen many chapels start out is that a few old or single people take everything over in the beginning, push the families out and then they get burnt out and want the families to step in.

It doesn't work that way. Families often have little they can offer and a short window of time in which they can offer it. I know we are incapable of doing what we once did with only one or two children.

You know what ?

The fact is that I have discovered that a lot people who complain that no one helps are the very people who push others away. This is especially true in large parishes where there is a small number of families who horde everything and then complain that no one else ever volunteers. These people push others away and make others feel little and stupid when they volunteer to help just wanting to be accepted.

About 20 years ago I was with a group of friends from my parish and I stated this. I expected to be shunned or shut down by my friends. What happened instead is the group of us all jumped in with stories and related experiences we had with the same group of people at this parish and then the stories moved on to experiences at previous parishes.

Now I just laugh when I run into this crowd. Better just skip the forced brunches or little socials going on in the Church or the calls for volunteers and hang with the out crowd. Keep it simple.

Just one more comment, this may not be true of smaller closer knit parishes- I don't assume this is the case right now at the mission I attend. I just have not really bothered to get involved enough to really know many people there well.

Frances · « **Reply #9 on:** February 27, 2014, 02:22:12 AM »

:dancing-banana:
Another perfectly legitimate reason why some people "never help" is distance from the chapel. Following a two to three hour drive after working all day, spending three hours cleaning, then driving back to my job, well, it just won't be happening...

Tiffany · « **Reply #10 on:** February 27, 2014, 06:12:05 AM »

Quote from: Aleah

The church that I attend struggles with obtaining volunteers to clean the church and help with the grounds.

For the month of February, only one person signed up on the cleaning roster. Not a family- just one person!

Does your parish have this problem?

Maybe the priest needs to look into paying someone to do it.

Tiffany · « **Reply #11 on:** February 27, 2014, 06:16:41 AM »

Quote from: Frances

:dancing-banana:
It varies. Sometimes many sign up and show up to clean. Sometimes those who signed don't show up. Other times, hardly anyone bothers to do either. It seems to be "all or nothing" when it comes to cleanliness and tidiness. When the corners resemble Collyer's mansion, a few people get disgusted and do a clean sweep that involves generous contributions to the dumpsters. Then the owners of the "stuff" get angry at the people who threw it out. The poor priest gets stuck with all their complaints. On one occasion, the priest himself cleaned out the refrigerator in the parish hall. After removing a whole rotten raw chicken and pre-Conciliar English muffins, he left the rest to we women. Much of the clutter problem stems from not having sufficient room. The rest comes from people who leave their belongings behind and never claim them.
One solution is to have a monthly Lost 'n Found Auction. A school where I taught did this. It was amazing how many families had so much stuff, they couldn't be bothered to claim it. I have some nice Tupperware as a result!

At my protestant church we had a older woman who would show up early (for as long as I can remember!) for mid-week service to to clean the fridge & would throw away all the teacher's lunches! :ready-to-eat:

MaterDominici · « **Reply #12 on:** February 27, 2014, 03:44:51 PM »

Our chapel has cleaning groups. The groups rotate week to week and when your group comes up (about once a month), each of the three people in the group cleans one area of the chapel/hall/classrooms. I doubt the whole group shows up at the same time, but possibly they do. On occassion, I see someone stay until after everyone has left the chapel on Sunday in order to do their cleaning before they make the trip back home.

When a new person is needed to fill a void, an announcement is placed in the bulletin. I'd imagine such meets with average success, but the announcement generally disappears again after a few weeks, so I guess the groups stay full. I've never been in a cleaning group so I only know what the bulletin tells me.