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October 11, 2025The Holy Family Shrine is ready for people’s prayers, reflections and hopefully miracles! The Holy Spirit helped during the construction by sending us some very generous people and companies to assist with the construction; St. Georges Christian Books and Gifts in Blaine gave us $700 off the statues list price; Furniture & Things in Elk River donated one of the benches; Linco Steel/Brad Praught donated and bent a metal brace to support the dome; and Carlson Greenhouse in Montrose donated the flowering plants and planting dirt.
But the Holy Spirit was not done there. The Holy Spirit sent many people to assist me with this project too. I am not sure I could have accomplished this project without the master mind and talent of Dan Dehmer. He not only designed the Shrine for me, he had the tools/equipment and skill to construct it. He not only donated his time and talent but he also donated the 3 trees, oriental grass and the crushed granite for the base of the shrine. We also appreciate his wife Dana, for allowing him to donate so much time away from their family. Then, we had the following people help with a lot of the hard labor: KofC Members—Dave Plude, Jeff Eull, Jim Barthel, Ron Scherr, John Meilahn, Blake Beaudry, Scott Franzen and Francis Beaudry; our sons Brandon & Travis Valerius; my brothers Mike, Donald and Bill Valerius; and Dave Vetsch who made the form for the dome.
We even had two parishioner who insisted on donating money to the project! So thank you Barb Douglas and Will & Nancy Duerr! Last but not the least, thank you to the Church of St. Albert for allowing us to construct this shrine on the premise. May God bless you all abundantly!
—Jim & Lori Valerius