Faith Christian School - Roanoke, Virginia
By: Jennifer Walker - Journey

Faith Christian’s head of school Samuel P. Cox calls the early years of his school the “nomadic life.”

“In the school’s first 10 years, we leased space from three different churches,” he said.

The students, faculty, and staff of this nondenominational school made do the best they could in their borrowed space.

“We were used to small classrooms, a tiny library, and no athletic facilities of our own,” he added. 

When the school was ready to dream of a home all its own, it dreamed big.

“We wanted large classrooms, a nice library, wide hallways, state-of-the-art science and computer labs, a gymnasium, and athletic fields,” Cox said. And they wanted it all at a minimal cost, “as we knew our budget would be limited.”

And so they prayed, began interviewing contractors and architects, and started to raise money. They hired R.L. Price Construction and Jones and Jones Associates Architects in Roanoke to work on plans, and school leadership began to focus on raising the funds.

They knew it would be a difficult task. Five years prior, two different fundraising professionals told them that the most they could hope to raise was $2 million to $2.5 million with their 60 families and 90 students who attended the school from their small, middle-class town. A new building that met all the school’s needs would cost far more than that. But school leadership did not lose sight, hiring a full-time director of development in lieu of a consulting firm.

“We realized that raising money is very relational and takes time,” Cox said.

With respect to the school’s tight budget, project architect Jyke Jones focused on designing a building that would be cost efficient from both the original construction to the operational expenses.

Meanwhile, Faith Christian’s fundraising took off.

The land on which the building would rest was a find, bordering a national park – the 477-mile vertical Blue Ridge Parkway – and mountains.

“It is a beautiful setting,” Cox said, adding that the vision was to have the building conform to the natural environment as closely as possible.

The site, however, presented some challenges in the design process.

“We had to work with the topography, which included clearing a forest and taking off the top of a hill,” he said. “There was the potential of finding substantial rock, which would have added significantly to our costs, but thankfully, none was discovered.”

The topography ultimately provided an opportunity in the building’s design.

“We explored several options to make the building all on one level; however, the education program of Faith Christian kept leading us back to a single, two-level building,” Jones said. “The topography of the site presented us with the opportunity to allow the upper level to have grade level access as well as the lower level. This allowed better exterior access for all students.”

The exterior was carefully designed to complement its beautiful setting with a metal green roof and split-faced block that closely resembles the national park structures all along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The 68,500-square-foot building also features classical architecture, such as Corinthian columns along the portico outside the main entrance.

Top-of-the-line hardwood flooring and lights were installed in the gymnasium, making it one of the top high school gyms in the nation. The building also features a beautiful, hardwood stage in the Great Room, and state-of-the-art computer and science labs and a large, open library.

The school has 302 K-12 students enrolled with a capacity of 516, “which is our strategic goal for enrollment,” Cox added.

 “Our budget was tight, and so we had to be as economical as possible and be good stewards of the money entrusted to us. The building is very functional and beautiful without a lot of bells and whistles,” Cox said.

The school still plans to expand its parking lot and add bleachers, curtains, and lighting to finish the building.

As of fall 2008, the school had raised $5.75 million of its $7.9 million project budget.

“We took out a bank loan for the remainder, and we are working to retire the debt now that we are in the new building,” Cox said.

The school recently raised its project budget $300,000 to $8.2 million.

“When we raise the $8.2 million, we will have paid off our debt and have additional money for the extra projects to complete the building,” he said. “The response from all constituencies has been wonderful. After a decade in modest and rented facilities, having to share space with various churches, folks have felt incredibly blessed to have such a beautiful home.”