Bingo helps pay off church mortgage

DANBURY -- It would be an exaggeration to call St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church the church that bingo built.

But thanks in part to the twice-weekly games the church has held for nearly 15 years, parishioners on Sunday were able to celebrate the final payment on the mortgage that funded construction of Pembroke Road church, which opened in 1996.

"We're going to burn the mortgage in the spring, said the Rev. Michael G. Popson, the church pastor. "A lot of work and sacrifice by the parish went into this."

At the close of the weekly 9 a.m. Mass on Sunday, bingo sites coordinators Stephen Sedlak and Stephany Fanning presented the pastor with a check for $6,410. It represented the last payment on the $860,000 mortgage obtained from the church Diocese after the parish outgrew the old church on Roberts Avenue and purchased land for the current building in 1993.

"That's over 1,300 bingo sessions in 15 years," said Sedlak, the caller for the Friday and Saturday night games.

Timing of the check presentation couldn't have been more appropriate. It came on the same day that the parish celebrated the annual Feast of St. Nicholas, the patron saint for whom he church, founded in 1923 by a small group of Eastern European immigrants, is named.

The games usually draw about 70 free bingo devotees from across the area, down a bit from the "bingo heydays" of the 1990s when more than 100 people attended, Fanning said.

"It has been a struggle to keep
it alive, but a lot of the credit has to go to Steve," Fanning said of her co-coordinator.

"It's my hobby. I don't mind it," said Sedlak.

St. Nicholas serves more than 130 families, some of whom come from as far away as White Plains, N.Y. and Meriden to attend the weekly services.

Popson, who has been pastor of the church for 16 years, said two major fund raising drives and proceeds from selling the old church property to the state, which used the land to expand Western Connecticut State University, also helped pay for the new church.

"His accomplishment couldn't have come at a better time. We're very luck," he said.

The end of the mortgage payments won't spell the end of play live bingo at St. Nicholas.

"It's not going to end. We still have to maintain the church," Sedlak said.

News Sources:-
By John Pirro
Staff Writer
Updated: 12/08/2008 12:12:52 AM EST
http://www.newstimes.com/ci_11164714