Safely Returning to Mass

As Masses and parish life begins to resume at the church, there will be many new concerns to take into account for the health and safety of parishioners during this time of transition.

While certain things may be expected such as social distancing and a heightened need for personal hygiene, there may also be practices that are new to parishioners such as no use of worship aids or no shaking hands, that require extra effort.

Many activities that involve indirect physical contact in any way are being addressed. As such, we have modified our bulletin production and handling methods to ensure parishioner safety with every bulletin. Also, below you will find best practice guidelines to help keep you and your parishioners safe and healthy while serving the communication needs of your community.

We are taking every precaution to ensure that every product that leaves our facilities is safe for you and your parishioners.

Parishioner Health Is Priority #1

Find comfort in knowing that your bulletin has been processed safely by Diocesan. We have taken every step possible to ensure that your parishioners can safely enjoy your bulletin every week.

OUR BULLETIN SAFETY PRACTICES

  • Simplified bulletin production.
    Our entire production process is now simplified down to as little as a single touch by a freshly gloved hand. This touchpoint occurs when the press operator places the entire bulletin stack into the box for shipping.  With the touch primarily on the bottom bulletin of the stack, we recommend not distributing the bottom bulletin.
  • Improved Digital Bulletin Production
    Every step of the pre-press process is conducted electronically and no human touch is necessary.
  • Factory sealed paper
    Our paper is factory sealed until loaded onto the press. No human hand touches the paper during this process.
  • Limit to a safe page count: 4, 6, and 8 Pages
    Bulletins with this many pages are created using a single sheet of paper that is automatically folded as it goes through the press. By limiting a bulletin to this number of pages, we have removed the need for the additional handling associated with collating larger page count bulletins.
  • UV cured bulletin
    As paper runs through the press, it is saturated in UV light.

 

OUR NATIONAL SAFETY PLEDGE

  • Strict company-wide adherence to National COVID-19 health and safety regulations.
    From our staff to our products to our facilities, we are focused on upholding the highest standard of safety practices and procedures.
  • Strict sanitization practices
    With regular sanitization of high traffic areas to daily deep cleans, using airline grade cleaning solutions, our facilities are safe for our employees and your bulletin.  As an added measure, we have invested in the same professional-grade, EPA approved chemicals and fogging machines used by the airlines, to disinfect our facilities every single night. This ensures that every morning our staff is entering a sterile environment and all surfaces are virus-free.
  • Social distancing standards are enforced
    Our staff is adhering to the same social distancing and safety standard as practiced by the Church and outlined by the CDC. All staff will be required to wear masks and practice safe distancing of 6′ when gathering.

Best Bulletin Practices for Your Parish

To help deliver important information to your parishioners, while continuing to maintain optimal safe health practices, please consider the following items when distributing your bulletin.

stack
  • Allow parishioners to take their own bulletin. DO NOT hand out the bulletin, rather place them in a high-traffic location to be picked up by parishioners as they leave Mass. Also, DO NOT place bulletins in the pews where they could possibly be reused.
glove
  • We recommend wearing gloves when transferring the bulletin from the delivery box to where parishioners will pick them up each week. This will preserve the integrity of the untouched product chain.
recycle
  • Encourage parishioners to properly dispose of the bulletin after use. Though the bulletin is a single-use product by nature (unlike a worship aid), you may need to offer an extra reminder for parishioners to dispose of the bulletin via recycling after use.

Working for Healthy Faith Communities

As your community begins to resume parish and sacramental life we will continue to implement best health safety standards and practices to ensure that your parishioners can receive and grow in faith with minimal health risk.
If you have any questions regarding our health safety practices, please contact our Customer Care team at
1-800-994-9817.
Continuing Environmental Stewardship

We continue to maintain the highest standard of environmentally conscious practices for your bulletin, such as using soy-based inks, paper that is sourced from sustainably-managed and fast-growing eucalyptus trees*, and recycling of paper waste. The modern church bulletin does not hurt the environment and all elements are recyclable.

In addition, we recognize that Mass attendance may be lower during the initial weeks returning to Mass, so we have implemented an easy way for you to adjust the bulletin count week-by-week during the bulletin file upload. We hope this helps to minimize waste and resources associated with overproduction.

LEARN ABOUT OUR GREEN COMMITTMENT

*Some species of eucalyptus tree can grow up to 15-20 feet per year!