Gearing up for Property Acquisition & Capital Campaign - Following several “false starts,” our church has begun our fundraising
campaign to purchase the Soko Hardware property. There is no stopping us this time!

Please reserve these dates on your calendar:
      ~Sunday February 12 Capital Campaign Kick-Off Worship Service
Plan to attend one of these Potlucks:
      ~1) Sat. April 21 (5pm) Capital Campaign Potluck (Dinner)
      or
      ~2) Tue. April 24 (11:30am) Capital Campaign Potluck (Lunch)

      ~Saturday May 19 Capital Campaign Celebration Dinner (Turning in Pledges)

      ~Sunday May 20 Capital Campaign Consecration Sunday
      Our Wesley Church Capital Campaign Leadership Team, composed of the chairpersons of the nine Campaign committees, met this week with Susan Peters, the Executive Director of the Calif-Nevada Annual Conference UM Foundation. Over the next four months, Susan and her team of campaign consultants, Rev. George Nishikawa and Ruth Burgess, will help us to raise $800K+. Susan and her team have worked with many churches (most recently, Centennial UMC in Sacramento and St. Paul UMC in Fremont) to achieve their fundraising goals.
      In the next several months, these chairpersons will be recruiting a host of Wesley church members and friends to help us achieve our goal. As these already busy individuals have stepped up to accept their respective responsibilities, when asked, please consider doing the same.
      We will follow a proven, successful plan. We will be following a plan which has proven successful many times in a number of churches throughout Northern California. However, a plan without people making it work remains a plan. Between now and May, we will be calling upon each of you to join us in helping to achieve our goal (through pledges and donations) of raising the $800K plus over the next five years.
      The Soko property is a once-in-a-lifetime purchase. Previous attempts to purchase an adjacent property (to expand our “property footprint” has failed because the property owner either did not wish to sell or other issues were involved. This time, however, the sellers want to sell their property to Wesley and negotiations will close within the next 90 days. Another opportunity like this may not appear again. Although the property's current tenants will continue to use the property, a lot of space still remains for meetings (large upstairs room), offices, and space for much-needed storage.
      An opportunity to grow our church's ministry. As Wesley continues to grow and our need for larger facilities become increasing evident, future generations will have the option to expand our church without having to consider moving Wesley to an entirely new location outside of Japantown. Therefore, in the next four months, we will asking everyone to “join hands” to achieve our goal. Although the economic climate has improved somewhat, the Campaign Committee recognizes it remains a challenging time for many. We ask for everyone’s prayer as we begin to move forward with this very timely and important project to benefit our Lord’s work and to benefit our future generations who will follow in our footsteps. Rev. George Nishikawa, a member of Susan Peter’s fundraising team, closed our Leadership Team meeting with the following prayer: The Wesley Campaign is now in the thoughts and hearts of her people. With Wesley’s long history of ministry, this Campaign will launch into the future with vision, plans and purpose. By your Grace, bless all efforts that the success shall be in continuous hope for your Kingdom