July 5

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

One of the things in life and in parish ministry that I’ve learned the importance of is known simply as “curb appeal.” Now, I’m not a real estate agent and I’m not buying and selling houses, but the idea that making the appearance of a property look good is something that really helps others appreciate the place itself. Here at St. Charles, we really try and maintain good curb appeal, through efforts with our landscaping, efforts to maintenance and preventative maintenance, and just generally trying to keep things clean and in order. While not perfect, we do get a lot of positive comments on how the parish looks, both inside and out. But I’d like to discuss a different kind of curb appeal in this week’s letter.

Being in the modern age, the way in which many people come and interact with our parish community is not necessarily with the physical campus, at least not at first. If you’re like me, when I have to know more about a particular place, I don’t just go and do a “drive-by fruiting” as one of my priest friends calls it; my first thought is to look it up online. And by checking something as simple as a website, you can learn a lot about both the place and the way it handles things. Some websites are sleek, with features like embedded videos and endless scroll, others

are more utilitarian with more basic features but a clear way to find what you need. To be honest, even in 2026, there are some websites that are just a mess to navigate, whether on a computer or on a smart phone.

Our current website has served us well over the years. One of the early projects that I tried to tackle when I came to St. Charles was to give the website a refresh, but that was all the way back in 2017. Now that we’re nine years on, it’s time for another refresh. And so, since the beginning of this year, we’ve been diligently working towards rolling out a new website design. We’ve been working with a local company based out of Jackson, who specializes not only in website design, but particularly for church entities. In fact, it’s the same company that we used to update the school’s website the year prior. Leading a lot of the work on our end has been our Marketing Director, Jim Vassallo, to whom I’m grateful for his efforts in getting us up and running in this direction. We’re at the point where we’re putting the finishing touches on the things, so the exact timing of the switch over is still to be determined. But I wanted to give the heads-up that a change is coming, and we’re happy for the refresh.

Peace and Goodness,

Fr. Dan