Greetings! The date for the first day of school is getting closer! And now to reveal what I alluded to last time, we now have all our teachers! God provided in plenty of time for all of them to be available for their educational seminars and training. Of course, I wouldn’t want to have a life change on a schedule that was that fast, but they are younger. And I guess when you think about it, many life changes give us no warning at all. Sometimes that’s good.
The carpet is now in all the areas we are currently using. They had one last work day for that, and did it all in one day. Looks good, and the acoustics have really changed in the rooms, as well as the light levels. Funny how we get used to the way things are in small ways. Anyone coming in after this will not even notice.
The big story for this time is school supplies and curriculum. The amount of little items that you need to run and office and classrooms is huge. All the way from a bag of rubber bands, to a copier. Speaking of which, we got a free one the other day from a company that was buying all new office equipment. Don’t know yet how good it works, but it was free! And it is a way bigger one with more features than we would have ever bought.
Speaking of free, many people have been very generously donating school and office supplies. We hung a list with tear-off slips at church and we had a huge pile of things last Sunday, with more still coming in. I think we have enough paper for about 2 years. Many thanks to everyone who helped out. Someone even donated a big first aid cabinet completely stocked with emergency supplies that we hope will never be used. But you know little ones, ouchies will happen.
We also had a former teacher supply a large amount of teaching bits and pieces, classroom decor, etc. It’s all stuff that make a classroom more handy and inviting for the children. It takes a lot of parts to keep young children interested and engaged, and these materials will really help with that. Thanks!
As I write this, we are right in the middle of getting shipments of the curriculum. I estimated wrong in my last post, for sure. We thought we were going to get maybe 30-40 boxes from the largest order, turns out it is 75! We got about 34 yesterday, which the UPS guy put right into our van. Later in the evening we hauled it to the school and opened most of them. We need to inventory everything just to make sure it all gets here, and while we do that, we are sorting it by grades. No, they didn’t pack it by grade. It looks like they worry more about packing the boxes full. So every item has to be compared to a 15 page invoice, so we can check it off. It is actually more fun then it sounds!
And even then, the work isn’t done. The teachers wanted a lot of their materials unbound, which means they have to go through packs of lessons and separate them page by page into other categories. I did that once for another school. It isn’t bad if you get some people and make a party out of it. I think we are going to let the teachers do that part.
Tomorrow we are expecting another 36 boxes. We also need to drive to Marion to pick up some items, before then going to Logansport for another appointment. If it doesn’t get here before we need to leave, the Marion trip will have to be postponed. I don’t want to leave 36 boxes outside with a chance of rain. All told, we will be getting close to 100 boxes and packages of curriculum materials alone, and that doesn’t count any school supplies we are ordering. Can you imagine the orders for larger schools?
The goal is to have the rooms ready for the teachers to start moving in by the 24th of July. By the time you read this, it should already have happened. Also, our fundraiser is getting close, only 4 days after that. We have planned to put up a tent for the singing portion, but God will have to provide clear skies for several days, since they want to put the tent up 3 days early. You can be praying for that, for sure. If it rains, we will try to have it inside, but that certainly isn’t ideal. Wherever we end up, come on over and enjoy the supper, singing, and as a bonus, get a look at the progress we have made on the building.
If you would like to donate school supplies, contact us to see what we still need. If you want to help with a financial donation, you can go on our website, www.uccs.school, there is a Donate button there, or you can contact us for more information. If you would like to make a totally anonymous donation, there is a button on our website to go through the Anabaptist Financial group. You can direct them to send your money to us, and your identity remains private.
