"Thanks a Million!" Building Campaign

 

The Campaign for Church of the Nativity & Nativity School

Looking to the Future

   The Church of the Nativity and its school, Nativity School, in Menlo Park, California are embarking on an exciting, ambitious, six-year renovation effort and are seeking financial assistance in this venture.  This program initially focuses on replacement of obsolete buildings on the elementary school campus.  The next phases involve updates to the 135 year-old church and grounds, and a new classroom facility for the school.

 

 

Phase 1:  Multi-use facility and new Kindergarten for Nativity School

  “The mission of Nativity School is to educate and prepare the whole child within a nurturing environment based on Catholic values and beliefs in order that the child may become a responsible and active member of the Church and society”

    Nativity School was founded in 1956. Nativity serves 300 children in grades K-8 from parish and non-parish families, as well as from non-Catholic families in the surrounding San Mateo, Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties.  Its students reflect the diverse cultures and ethnicity of the region.  Currently, 48% of the school’s population comes from culturally diverse backgrounds and approximately 15% of the student body receives financial aid.  The school plans to hold its present enrollment, and to continue offering financial aid to families seeking a high quality Catholic education who cannot otherwise afford it.  The school also hosts the parish CCD activities on weekends.

 

     The campus features the original main building, which includes eight classrooms and administrative offices.  There also are six portable buildings housing the computer lab, science room, extended care facility, resource center and Kindergarten, most of which were constructed during the 1980s.

      The initial phase of our project will replace our existing multipurpose hall and construct a permanent Kindergarten.  The existing Kindergarten is more than 20 years old and is at the end of its useful life.  It soon will be in violation of the city’s ordinance on temporary structures.  The existing multi-purpose facility, which serves as a gym, meeting hall and kitchen, is seismically unsafe, is not fully fire-protected, and does not have the square footage necessary to host the school’s sports activities, nor school-wide functions.  Nativity’s sports program is thriving and more than one-third of our students are active participants.  However, our school is the only Catholic elementary school on the peninsula that does not have a gymnasium, resulting in us having to spend over $10,000 annually to rent facilities.  Additionally, the hall’s capacity to house only 120 people falls far short of accommodating the 330-strong population (students, teachers and administrative and support personnel) under the current fire code, leaving the school without an enclosed facility for all-hands meetings, presentations or ceremonies.   The proposed facility is planned to accommodate over 500 people and will fully support all school as well as parish community activities. 

    These two undertakings comprise Phase I of our project and are planned for initiation in June 2007, at a cost of $6,960,000.  These projects represent our most pressing needs and will benefit the greatest number in our community.  The project cost of the multi-purpose pavilion is $4.18M, the Kindergarten, $580K, and necessary site work is projected at $2.2M.

Project Status:  Thanks to the leadership of Msgr. Steven Otellini, we have secured gifts and pledges that represent roughly half the $7 million necessary to construct the new multi-purpose building, Kindergarten, and site work.  The $3.5 million raised to date represents a number of large gifts from generous donors and foundations.  Our next phase involves a call to all alumni of Nativity to support our building fund in our ”Thanks a Million” campaign, which hopes to bring the total raised by existing parents and alumni of Nativity to $1 million, aided by an extremely generous matching fund pledge from the Spieker Family Foundation.