St. Paul’s celebrates new handicap ramp

A project years in the making is now complete at the St. Paul Lutheran Church in Curtiss. After years of fundraising and planning, a new handicap ramp and front entrance was blessed with a dedication ceremony on Sunday, Aug. 15.

The project began in the late 1990’s, when the Aid Association for Lutherans offered matching funds from profits of St. Paul’s various fundraisers. Members of St. Paul’s took advantage by having garage sales, fruit basket sales, bake sales harvest and lasagna dinners, brunches, chicken dinners and youth brat frys.

It was decided to invest these funds in a separate account designed to the Front Entrance Fund. In the future, St. Paul’s will need to replace their present ramp and front entrance with an enclosed ramp and new front entrance.

In April of 2018, Arlen Utke, a member of the St. Paul’s congregation, provided the church with blueprints. From there, the church proceeded to get estimates, and the decision was made to contact contractor Dale Stuttgen for his blueprint estimates.

After many plans and meetings throughout 2019, by June of 2020, the final vote of the congregation took place, and a building permit was secured.

The ramp and entrance project took place in October of 2020, with prices that were rapidly increasing for materials. It was then the congregation realized the electrical system would need to be upgraded.

The electrical project was then completed in March of 2021, and the ramp/ entrance was then completed in April of 2020.