Important Tomahawk Creek Middle School Update

I just returned from the official ribbon cutting and opening ceremony for the New Tomahawk Creek Middle School. I was invited by the Principal, Jeff Ellick, to begin the ceremony with prayer. It reminded me a lot of launching New Venture almost four years ago. It was an excitement filled celebration. Many years of planning, work and development have now produced a tremendous school building. It is the finest I have seen in the middle school department. Of course, it should be, for the $45,000,000 price tag that came with it. Here is a link to the school website if you would like to check it out.

http://www.chesterfield.k12.va.us/Schools/Tomahawk_Creek_MS/indexb.html

But it is not just expensive, it is so nicely laid out. Everything is so accessible from the main entrance. It is a church meeting place dream.

And in case you haven’t heard, New Venture is moving to TCMS in January. We have been waiting for the approval of our rental application and it arrived a few days ago. So our move is now official.

This is an unprecedented decision for this county. The school system does not usually permit churches to rent new facilities for a full year after the school occupies the building. God is opening before us an enormous door of opportunity.

We are calling the move a relaunch. We will approach it much like we did in the beginning when we first launched NV.

Here is our huge challenge. The move is going to cost us over $60,000. This figure includes retooling our entire children’s department to fit the school setting including lots of portable classroom dividers, all new signage, reworking printed materials, numerous locking/portable storage units and massive marketing. The marketing alone will run about $25,000.

The TCMS and its layout are tremendous improvements over our current location. The challenge of the move is the location, at least at the current time. Our current location is in the center of traffic flow in Midlothian and we are permitted to leave signage up 24/7. Though the school is in a developing area, due to its newness, most of the 200,000 people of this community are not aware of its location. Therefore, we are forced to utilize multiple marketing approaches to get the word out on our new location.

New Venture has been self-supporting since the beginning of 2008. We are paying our own way when it comes to weekly operating expenses. However, there is nothing left over to meet the costs of relocation and relaunching. We do have $10,000 that we have accumulated from special gifts that we are designating to the relaunch account. That leaves $50,000 needed to raise.

The staff is in the process of inviting family, friends and churches outside this area to send gifts toward our relaunch costs. You are also invited to join them with gifts to go toward our move. We only ask that if you currently give to NV that you not redirect your giving from regular giving to this special need. We ask that gifts be in addition to your regular giving. Just mark them with “Relaunch.”

I can’t tell you how excited we are about our relaunch and this move. The move is just what New Venture needs for our next growth step. There could not be more of a God door than this. We have set a goal of 322 for our opening day in the new location. Please pray for God’s direction and blessings each step of the way.

Our mailing address is NVCC, PO Box 73311, Richmond, VA 23235.