Help to Erase Debt for St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral

Loan Payoff Fundraiser

Goal Progress:

St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral

Thank you for your generosity in helping our church become debt free. This ensures that we do not defer this problem to our children and future generations.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We are writing to inform you about our church’s debt obligations and to make a plea about the necessary steps we need to take in order to pay them off. At the time of writing this letter, the current total balance for six loans in question is $621,679¹. On the other hand, annual operating church expenses for 2022 are projected to be ~$958,000². The loan payments account for ~18% (~$172,000¹) of annual expenses, while ~$30,000¹ goes towards loan interest only. This creates a massive operating burden and it limits our ability to focus on the most important investment projects to improve crumbling facilities.

At our first Church Board meeting of 2022 held on February 7th, a subcommittee was formed with a single goal, which is to:

Organize paying off this debt as soon as possible, so as not to defer the problem to our children and future generations.

Brothers and sisters, to avoid placing this debt on the shoulders of our children, we need to step up and erase it now and forever. Considering the size of our parish, we sincerely feel as if we can do this in the matter of a few months, so that we can move forward with the prosperity of our church. Specifically, we hope to have this debt paid off by April 30th of this year when we plan to organize a celebration banquet for the congregation in the Wisconsin Room of Serb Hall at 6:00pm.

V. Rev. Fr. Radomir Cutilo was the first to offer a donation toward this goal and Church Board members are following the example he set forth. We hope you will follow us as well. Therefore, we are asking you to donate at your own will. In the event collected donations exceed our debt, the remaining funds will be used for the most pressing church repair/maintenance projects and operational expenses.

All donations are tax deductible and equally important, so please give as you are able. Let us take care of our church as God wants us to! Please use the enclosed envelope for your convenience to mail donation to:

St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church

3201 S. 51st St, Milwaukee, WI 53219

In the check memo, please write “Debt Free Church”.

List of Donations

UPDATED: September 16th, 2024 @ 6:29 p.m.

Name	Amount	Date
Gagic, Alen	$1,000	02/26/2022
Vujasinovic, Tanja	$1,000	02/26/2022
Grmusa, Predrag & Mirjana	$1,000	02/26/2022
Dragicevic, Danijel & Natasa	$1,000	02/26/2022
Ubiparipovic, Milan & Spomenka	$1,000	02/26/2022
Catic, Milan & Mila	$1,000	02/26/2022
Sebez, Milorad	$1,000	02/26/2022
Djogo, Dragan & Daniela N.	$1,000	02/27/2022
Lazic, Lazar & Daliborka	$1,000	02/27/2022
Prpa, Rade & Radojka	$1,000	02/27/2022
Bjelic, Aleksandar & Suzana	$1,000	02/27/2022
Jovanovich, Milan & Bozana	$1,000	02/27/2022

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Already Paid Off Loans

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

It is amazing what we can do when we all come together! With your generous donations that we've collected so far, we've already been able to pay off 3 loans. In the spirit of aiming to be completely transparent, below you'll find bank's payoff letter, payment check and transaction receipt of the biggest loan that was burdening the church. This loan was acquired in 2004 to build the new portion of the Cultural Center and it had a payoff balance of $227,490.80.