<\/p>\n
T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY
\nAs school leaders continue to lead fundraising efforts for a planned expansion of the K-8 facility, the annual Marshalltown Christian School (MCS) Royals Gala fundraiser will be held on Saturday, April 18 at the school building, located at 1408 S. 7th Ave., beginning at 6 p.m. <\/p>\n
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The leaders and supporters of the Marshalltown Christian School (MCS) have big plans for continued growth and expansion of their facility located at 1408 S. 7th Ave., and ahead of the upcoming Royals Gala fundraising event on Saturday, April 18, School Administrator Bethany Wirin spoke to the T-R about where they stand and what the future holds. <\/p>\n
According to Wirin, overall K-8 enrollment is holding steady at 120 students, which is intentional after the major growth over the last two years since the state legislature implemented the Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) program for families who choose to send their children to nonpublic school settings. The goal, she said, is to move the outdoor field to make room for an expansion including four new classrooms as some classes are currently being held inside of nearby Journey Church. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very thankful that that\u2019s an option for us, so we don\u2019t have to go even further. That\u2019s been great, but it would be nice to be all under one roof,\u201d Wirin said. <\/p>\n
Wirin and her board members plan to lay out their plans for the expansion and water retention work during the upcoming Royals Gala, which is set to begin at 6 p.m. at the school on April 18. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur plans continue, so we\u2019ve got a master plan, and then the board committed to the engineering plans, design and the construction documents. So that\u2019s a big chunk of money that we have just set aside for building,\u201d Wirin said. \u201cSince we\u2019ve paid off this building, people have continued to contribute to a building fund, basically\u2026 So that work is underway, and the fundraising for the expansion itself has just begun, just started this calendar year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The total cost of the project is estimated at about $3 million, and Wirin said they will need to have 80 to 85 percent of it on hand \u2014 $2.5 million \u2014 to move forward. She foresees a potential opening date of the fall of 2028. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut if the Lord just says \u2018Here, do it now,\u2019 then we\u2019ll do it now and open in the fall of \u201927. That would be amazing,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The decision to hold the Gala at the school arose out of a desire to highlight the building needs, and it will also show off the recently completed library renovation. The ESA tuition money covers the operational budget of the school, but it cannot be put toward facility expansions. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis year we hope to raise $90,000 toward the following meaningful initiatives: Enriching our students\u2019 learning with more experiences both inside and outside the school walls (and) supporting the engineering costs for Phase 2 of our building plan,\u201d Wirin said. <\/p>\n
The Gala will feature music from Donna Svendsen, a catered meal and decorations by Luisa Ortega. The registration deadline is Saturday, and anyone interested in attending can either stop by the school or call (641) 753-8824 during regular business hours. <\/p>\n
Wirin, who has held her current title since the 2017-2018 school year, said she continues to put students first as part of the MCS mission to provide a Christ-centered education for local children. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard, right now, to say yes (to new students) because of the space. We have a couple classrooms that are very small and frankly don\u2019t fit that many children\u2026 <\/p>\n
We want kids to be able to move around,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m in constant improvement mode, trying to always learn from mistakes and move the school in a healthy direction for the mission.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
Contact Robert Maharry <\/p>\n
at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or <\/p>\n
rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.timesrepublican.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY As school leaders continue to lead fundraising efforts for a planned expansion of the K-8 facility, the annual Marshalltown Christian School (MCS) Royals Gala fundraiser will be held on Saturday, April 18 at the school building, located at 1408 S. 7th Ave., beginning at 6 p.m. The leaders and supporters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2363619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[459235,431065],"class_list":["post-2363618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-mcs-administrator-shares-fundraising-update-ahead-of-annual-royals-gala","tag-todays-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MCS-administrator-shares-fundraising-update-ahead-of-annual-Royals-Gala.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2363618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2363620,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363618\/revisions\/2363620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2363619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2363618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2363618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2363618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}