St. Francis Prayer Center

Phil Schmitter was a member of that first formative team mentioned above, he became a full time staff person in January of 1978 when he moved into River Park Apartments, a low-income housing development close by the Prayer Center. River Park and his ministry became the outreach of the Center. As a result of the Diocese seeking to sell St. Francis Parish and after a long time of prayer and discernment, we became a duly constituted not-for-profit tax-exempt organization incorporated in the State of Michigan (a 501(c) 3 by the U.S. Department of Internal Revenue) on September 20, 1979, and in blind faith purchased the one hundred year old farm house located at 1602 East Carpenter Road.

Holy Family Youth Group 2016 sent a large group of junior high and high school students to assist the removal of 12, 30-40′ pine trees. The multitude of hands made the job not nearly so overwhelming. The following year, they assisted with the scraping and sanding of our decks. The job was unbelievably hard, and they did a stellar job.