St. John Nepomucene Parish & School Endowment Fund, Little Chute
“The gift has been a very real benefit for the parish and will continue to be quite a benefit in the future, particularly for the school and the parish, as we receive funding for special projects from that endowment annually. It was a very, very generous gift and it has helped.”
— Father Jim Hablewitz, former pastor
As the only staffed youth retreat center in the Diocese of Green Bay, Mount Tabor Center in Menasha hosted 100 retreats for more than 3,000 students in 2008.
Not all youth were happy to be there when those retreats started, says Eden Foord, director. “But many times, students that are totally closed coming in, leave saying, ‘This was the best experience of my life’ and giving us hugs and high-fives on the way out.”
The Catholic Foundation for the Diocese assists 
Green Bay Mount Tabor Center through the:
- Clarence & Dolores Wallace Endowment Fund for Mount Tabor Center, Menasha
- Sister Mary Jo Kirt Endowment Fund for Mount Tabor Center, Menasha
“These fund disbursements are vital, especially as we’ve grown,” says Foord, who has seen the number of students making retreats each year triple in five years.
“I once bought some annuities from another place and I lost most of that money, about 
nine, ten years ago. They paid annuities for two years and after that they said they went broke,” says Father Leander Nickel. “Since then I buy annuities only from Catholic organizations.”
Checks from the Catholic Foundation come regularly and after death the money invested will be used for good causes, says Father William Rickert. “The diocese knows where to put the money.”
One of those places is seminary training of our future priests, who will serve the church for decades to come, Father Nickel says.
“We’ve been in these charitable gift annuities a long time,” Father Rickert says. “Anybody who isn’t in here should take note.”
“You feel happy that you’ve been able to give people something so they can meet their goals. It’s really nice that St. John Nepomucene Parish in Little Chute has got this fund there so they can say, ‘It’s broke, let’s fix it’ and have a way without going into debt that they can fund these things.”
— Marilyn Borree, trustee for the Stephen H. Eckes Custodial Fund