The First Years
By Joan Stoltz
“Just one moment Father Porter. Let me get the baby before we continue our interview!” We were in my home, as I didn’t have a babysitter. Fr. Porter offered to come to me! That is how my journey as a St. Max Staff person began! It was 1991 and St. Max was ready to hire a full-time youth minister. Our staff consisted of Fr Porter, the parish secretary, Kathy Wojciechowski, and then me as Youth Minister. In those days, Fr. Porter was living in a house on Van Gorden Road and so our offices were a bedroom and the dining room table! Our parish meetings were held in the living room or at the table!
At that time, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati was trying to purchase the property on VanGorden as the site for our new church. Because of complications, they bought the Hamilton-Mason property instead. Oh, what a joyful day when we were finally able to move into the rectory basement and each have our own office!
When my second child was born in 1993, there wasn’t a policy for maternity leave. You had to use vacation time. I had 2-3 weeks. Upon returning to work, we set up a crib in my office and she came to work with me until she was about 4 months old!
I remember walking into the gym when it was just framed and we were giddy with excitement to think that soon we would have a semi-permanent worship space. No more church from a van in a school cafeteria! Little did we know then how much work it is to have Mass in a gym. Setting up chairs, taking down chairs, are the rows equally spaced? Fr. Porter in his preciseness even had little dots on the floor where each row was to begin!
Back then Father Porter was the one who closed up the building each night. He was meticulous in this process! If you happened to leave a cabinet unlocked in one of the classrooms you would hear about it the next morning! We built this parish because he was frugal and taught us to be the same. It was not our money but that of our hard-working parishioners. He alone cut the grass on the John Deere tractor. He was very protective of that tractor! I think he did allow Dan Suer to use it to drag our softball field. Yes, there was a field where the upper parking lot is now located!
In the first 10 years of our existence, ministry budgets did not exist. If you wanted to do something, you had to meet with Fr. Porter and done ALL your research. Most likely he would approve. Then you had to figure out a way to pay for it! Of course, with youth there are costs associated with social gatherings, trips and retreats. That is how the mulch sale originated. That was our fundraiser for our yearly budget. We did not have lift trucks or trucks and trailers to deliver, just lots of adult and youth manpower to load those bags every weekend for about 6 weeks through rain and snow and more rain and more snow!
In the first years, I took the youth group on a camping trip to Michigan. We stayed in cabins at a campground. Teens will be teens and a handful decided to ‘explore’ after lights out. As all parents know, the truth eventually comes out! Coincidently at the same time, the parish had been contemplating a sand volleyball court for the youth and the parish. So, as a consequence for breaking the curfew rules, these individuals (some who are still parishioners here) put in quite a bit of time digging for our new sand volleyball court! It was located in the field behind room 16 (the former youth room).
Looking back, I can say that we were one family working toward a common goal. We were all invested in St. Maximilian Kolbe Church. It was our church. We did much of the work ourselves, and the relationships we built remain strong to this day. I can’t imagine living the last 35 years without my St. Max family. We have celebrated together and they have walked with us through some very hard times. We are honored and blessed to call St. Max home.