HISTORY
St. Catherine of Siena Church has a wonderful history of serving the Kalamazoo-Portage Community since 1966. We are a Roman Catholic faith community committed and enthusiastic about our ministry. The gifts that God has given us are to be used not only for ourselves but for our neighbors. We have various programs at St. Catherine of Siena Church which seeks to embrace a sense of community. We also have an active Youth Ministry program which provides leadership and learning opportunities for the youth of Portage and Kalamazoo along with our service with other churches in Habitat for Humanity, food banks, and St. Vincent DePaul Society.
Our recent renovation of the Church in spring 2005 has enabled us to explore more community outreach opportunities. We hope to make it possible for the Portage Area to share and contribute to the rich and varied cultural life of Greater Kalamazoo. We are offering our facility with the hope of contributing to the creation of a more integrated cultural life. This could be a life in which the various constituent groups learn to appreciate and value each others art and music. We hope to be a venue for cultural life that is now mainly concentrated in the central district of Kalamazoo.
It has been a historic mission of the Church to be a place where the various cultural groups can learn not only to live together but stimulate each other. This has been a very important part of the history of St. Catherine’s Parish. It has been a people willing to take a risk and reach out to those in our world who may differ from our common experience. It has been a community that appreciates the power of art and culture to bring us together.
We believe that Music and Arts have the power to unite people of different faiths and cultures that would not normally connect with each other. Whatever our situation is, there is always some way we can be of service to others. Through the fine arts, we believe that the addition of our Siena Arts program will not only celebrate sacred music and religious art, but unite communities of all faith traditions in Portage and Kalamazoo.