PARKING LOT AND LIGHTING PROJECT NEARLY COMPLETE!

October has been an exciting time for St. Margaret’s, as many months of intense planning and vision have resulted in a much-needed upgrade to our church parking lot, walkways and front entrance, as well as the resurfacing of the driveway coming up from the street to the lot and to the Rectory.

After more than 50 years, the church and surrounding grounds have been given a major facelift and the results have been nothing short of spectacular. The campus almost looks new again! The old worn brick pathways have been replaced with beautiful mottled gray interlocking paving stones – to compliment the color of the church exterior - with complimentary dark gray border stones. The partially crumbling and sinking concrete entrance pad in front of our church doors has been covered over with these paver stones- as well as the drop-off pad at the bottom of the front walkway. We now have a beautiful drop-off area for visitors, limos and hearses– which should last for many, many years to come. We have made use of four unused drainage wells that are now connected and draining the grounds properly. The dusty, uneven, hole-filled gravel lot has been transformed into a smooth, modern and safe parking lot – complete with a solid asphalt base with proper drainage, a striking Belgian block perimeter, defined parking-space lines (including seven handicap-specific spaces) and most importantly – our first-ever light poles – complete with six LED light fixtures to make the parking lot much brighter and safer to walk through at night!

We have also done some landscaping near the front entrance (with more to come) and in the early spring, the center island of the lot will be planted with three 4-foot bushes. To make sure these plantings stay green and healthy, we also installed a sprinkler line to the center island.

My hope is that not only will our own parishioners be proud of our “new look,” but that our updated curb appeal, which I believe has enhanced the beauty of St. Margaret’s, will invite more people into St. Margaret’s to find out who we are and what we are all about. I want to thank the Vestry, Mother Jennifer and all who gave their support and encouragement during this long and sometimes difficult process. And lastly, I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my incredible co-pilot Bill S., who helped with the bidding process and planning and who came to the job site every day to make sure this project was supervised correctly and came out as great as it did! His knowledge of construction and expertise in various aspects of this project were invaluable to me and I am so blessed and thankful for his guidance.

Thanks to all!

~ Dan McGee