We hope you’ve heard the exciting news: Spring of Life has a vision to build a 13 classroom Early Learning Center opening August of 2027.

Our mission is embracing all to become vessels of God’s overflowing grace and we seek to live out through our vision of being a community hub for the healing of families and strengthening of the community. By welcoming more students into our school and building new community partnerships through renting space this project will positive impact our overall mission.

You do; every member of Spring of Life United Methodist Church has the opportunity to vote yes or no to this project at our church conference on May 3rd at 11:30am. The leadership council has worked hard preparing all of us to make a thoughtful and prayerful decision.

There are risks involved with saying yes or no. The risks of undertaking the project are the cost of a 6.5 million dollar building, the stress of fundraising, and the amount of time it will require of all our leaders. The risk of saying no to the project is that our ministry impact in our community will get smaller each year as our community grows and some of our church ministries will be constrained by space limitations.

This project is estimated to cost $6.5 million and will be primarily funded through a loan from the Florida United Methodist Foundation. The loan approval will be needed to proceed with construction. In terms of fundraising, we have good news to share. $200k has already been raised and $400k has already been pledged before our capital campaign has officially begun. These funds have been raised and are designated outside the regular church budget.

The Fundraising plan has started and the first phase (financial feasibility study) is complete. With the guidance of Horizon’s stewardship consultants, we are now proceeding with the next steps of launching a capital campaign including recruiting more leaders, hosting events, and sharing the story widely inviting people to participate in what God is doing.

We plan to rent out some of our seven classrooms to entities that align with our church mission. The remaining rooms will be dedicated to church ministry for children, youth, and adult discipleship. By repurposing space, we will further align with the Church’s vision of being a community hub.

We would celebrate the ministry of other churches meeting the growing needs of children and families in our expanding community. Our Early Learning Center has been impacting the lives of children and their families through wonderful ministry for almost 20 years. We currently have a waiting list of over 50 students. We recognize the need for childhood education in Lake Nona is growing and faithful organizations will act to meet those needs in the future. We have an opportunity to expand our ministry and welcome the families we are currently turning away at our enrollment lottery.

This goal is achievable and it would require finalizing the loan approval in June with construction beginning in July.