The Mundt Foundation, a private foundation located in Nebraska, recently awarded St. Paul Lutheran Church with a $25,000 grant, to be used to purchase furnishings for the upcoming Great Hall of the Christian Education Center space.
According to Pastor Doug Baumon, the need for the expansion comes from their growing church body, as in the last 25 years, he said their worship attendance has doubled and their preschool and kindergarten enrollment has tripled. This expansion will allow for the church to serve more children and their families, as well as engaging the community through a Latino outreach and youth ministry services.
“This whole project is actually called ‘Extending Christ’s Love,’ so that’s kind of the theme we’re gathering around that we want to extend the love of Christ into our community and serve even more with the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Baumon said.
The project carries a budget of $8.125 million to create and complete, Baumon said. The new space, currently in the fundraising stage, will include a kitchen and a wide area that can be used for events or indoor recreation. It will also feature feature a small chapel for Spanish services on Sundays and education for preschoolers and kindergarteners during the week, he said.
“So basically, every day it will be used for something, Sundays and then during the week when school is in session,” Baumon said. “And then the rest of the addition will allow us to expand our school from three classrooms to six classrooms when we get to full capacity and then we’re also very tied in terms of our Sunday school classrooms and youth area, so we’ll be able to expand in those areas as well.”
Baumon said the church had applied for this grant back in April and received it in May. He said the Mundt family is very supportive of Lutheran education and expansion of schools and school ministry throughout the country, so he said it is wonderful that they want to support this new space.
According to the church’s newsletter, this is a matching grant and a gift for $25,000 has been received in memory of Bob and Bonnie Risk to provide the matching funds. Baumon said that $50,000 then will cover the cost of the space’s furnishings.
“We’ve been blessed with grants like this and people have been very generous in their giving and their pledging,” Baumon said. “We’re very pleased with how generous people have been in support of this project.”
