Looking ahead
Dear Supporters of HKOA,
First, a heartfelt thank-you to all of you who have supported us over the past four years. Whether by your presence, your feedback, your donations, or your prayers, HKOA is blessed to know you.
I was recently looking through my HKOA folder and found our pamphlet saying, “accepting students February 2022.” My goodness, I cannot believe that was almost three years ago. It has me reflecting on our journey that we started in the fall of 2021. We did not open a school that next fall and looking back we see that as a blessing. It would have been too much too quick; a house that was built on sand. We have been slowly and steadily moving forward though, and I would like to believe that the foundation is becoming a rock. So, what have we been up to?
Our Activities: Engaging Hearts, Illuminating Minds
What we have been up to can be encompassed by our motto, “engaging hearts, illuminating minds.” We strive to do this in three ways: the homeschooling CO-OP, community events, and the speaker series.
The HKOA Homeschooling CO-OP is our primary work of love. We meet every two weeks at St George’s (thank you St George’s for your generosity!) and continue to grow. We start the day with prayer, scripture readings and reflection, then continue with arts, reading, play, or cooking (to name a few). This last semester the older students engaged in a study of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and some calligraphy classes, and before Christmas we spent a day delivering Christmas hampers. The CO-OP is full of activity and full of love.
HKOA strives to engage with the Orthodox community at large as well. Just before Christmas we did our annual sleigh ride at Birds Hill Park and had a record turn out. Campfires, snowballs, s’mores, and sleigh rides; it was a blast (and it’s free!). Please join us next year! Stephanie Strang also organizes our Sunday saunters – a once per month get together for kids and adults alike. Walks, hikes, tobogganing, sleigh rides; whatever we do it is a great time to get out. Fellowship for kids and adults alike.
Our speaker series continues to grow, and we had a record turn out for Fr Andrew Steven Damick in October. We have exciting guests planned to come – our strategy is to always have our next speaker booked before each event - and have 1-2 speakers in the wings coming up. Let’s just say we are all excited to continue this. Dr Paul Blair is up next on March 29th, and his topic is “Redeeming Death.” Paul is bringing his years of experience as a chaplain and extensive knowledge of the bible and Orthodox Christian worship to bear on this topic. I hope you will join us; more info on how to obtain tickets to come.
Looking Ahead: The Vision for an Orthodox School
But what about the future and what about an Orthodox school in Manitoba?
If HKOA continues as it is, all of us who are involved will resoundingly say that it is a success. There is however a need and an opportunity right now for private education, especially an Orthodox one. Private schools are bursting at the seams. We’ve spoken to people at Calvin Christian, St Paul’s, St Mary’s, St Maurice, Springs, and it’s all the same feedback – people are yearning for good education underpinned by traditional Christian values. The time is ripe for the Orthodox community to meet this need.
We have thought a lot about this, and it is one of the reasons we brought Fr Andrew Damick here in October. He was instrumental in the founding of St Constantine Academy, a private Orthodox school in the US. Their first year they had under 30 students, the second year about 50, and this year they are over 90. While he was in Winnipeg the HKOA group met with him a few times to learn from his experiences and talk about next steps. That next step is to hire a Headmaster.
To that end we have met with several people, and I am very happy to say that we are close to having a Headmaster. This is someone who knows the educational landscape, is passionate about our cause, and who is Orthodox. This person’s mission is to further the vision of what our school will look like, gather more support, develop a curriculum, and God willing, find students and staff. And this is where you come in.
In Manitoba we must spend two years fully functioning as an independent school before we get funding from the province, which is almost $7,000 per student. We are required to teach the Manitoba curriculum, but it is broad enough that this will not be a problem. To be very open, we need about $200,000 in the bank and $10,000 in monthly pledges to make this happen. Here’s some good news – we’ve managed to raise over $40,000 so far, and our monthly pledges are over $2,000, and we have just started. We are looking for more people that can support us monthly, whether it is $1, $5, or $100. The more $1 and $5 monthly donations we have the better, because it shows us that we have the support of the community; together we can make an HKOA school reality (all donations are tax deductible too!).
Please continue to pray for us and for being part of this journey. Together, we can build a strong foundation for Orthodox education in Manitoba. Your prayers, presence, and support inspire us to continue engaging minds and illuminating hearts.
In XC,
Subdeacon Edwin (Cam) and the whole crew from HKOA
📍 More info & donations:
🌐 heavenlykingacademy.ca
💳 Canada Helps Donation Page
