What a difference a year makes!

What a difference a year makes!

Friday, 06 January 2012 12:36

As I sat down to write this blog I was reminded of the lines from a song that Dinah Washington sang during the years that I attended EC. Others of my generation will also recall her clear beautiful voice as she sang " What a difference a day makes, 24 little hours". Those lines have been repeated by so many over the years and made to apply to a host of situations in people's personal lives as well as in their professional lives.

While things in fact do change from day to day at Eastern Christian, I took the liberty to modify the phrase to differences within the span of a year as we typically compare events on a year to year basis. This past year was like no other in our history as we embarked on a number of initiatives to make the school better, to be funded on a more sustained basis and to make it a place of learning throughout the entire year.

Many readers are familiar with our installation of solar panels on all three school buildings this past year, effectively eliminating our regular electric bills and creating a sustainable cash flow to retire the debts we took on with the installation of the panels.

We have completed the first year of operations at ditto, our upscale resale store in North Haledon. The results for the first year were beyond expectations and enabled ditto to donate $75,000 of the sale proceeds to Eastern Christian and to establish itself as the place to shop in the local area.

In order to fully utilize our facilities on a 12 moth basis, we established a EC Camps program for all ages and interests. Even though this past summer was our first venture into a program of this type, it was both successful and profitable.

We are not resting on our laurels as we have 3 other business ventures under consideration and in the planning stage for the next school year. We sincerely believe that these new initiatives will enhance the learning experience of the students who will be a part of these programs. These new programs will be open to community students as well as EC students as we strive to make our mark as a strong community partner in education. Final details of these new programs will be released as they are completed.

What all this means is that we are very focused on the need for affordable Christian Education, and to the extent that these business ventures add to the bottom line, we are able to keep tuition as affordable as possible.

We are looking forward to 2012 as a year of increased opportunities for service, for additional innovative ways to support Christian Education and for your continued support by giving of your time, talent and treasure.

These are both challenging times and exciting times for Eastern Christian School. Together we can make a difference and keep Christian Education very visible and achievable in the North Jersey Area!

Garret G. Nieuwenhuis ' 58

Executive Director

Foundation for Eastern Christian School Assn.