WINONA LAKE – Lakeland Christian Academy had its groundbreaking Saturday for its Early Learning Academy (ELA) through third-grade building at its Winona Lake campus.
Currently, students in the ELA through third grade attend school at Community Grace Brethren Church in Warsaw, while fourth through 12th grades are based at the Winona Lake campus.
Superintendent Joe Elrod said the project is estimated at $7.7 million and construction will start after the school year ends. The money for the project will predominately come from fundraising events and whatever LCA doesn’t raise, they will take out in loans. On Saturday, LCA had a spring fundraiser dinner as well at Christ's Covenant Church.
There will be a breezeway that will connect the two buildings at the Winona Lake campus, but Elrod said the two buildings house two different programs so it made sense to separate the littles from the bigs.
As to the specifics of the building and costs, LCA Board of Trustees President Nate Bosch said the facility will be two stories totaling about 30,000 square feet of educational space. The bottom floor will house the ELA, with the second story being the lower school. The building will be able to accommodate 100 more students than LCA currently has capacity for. The ELA will feature six to eight classrooms. One room will be specifically dedicated to movement to accommodate LCA’s curriculum surrounding Lives in Motion.
LCA decided to move the current ELA to third-grade building to the Winona Lake campus because their lease was up at Community Grace Brethren Church in Warsaw. The school’s choice was either to renew their lease or build on their Winona Lake campus. Elrod said their decision to help the school long-term was to build the facility on campus.
Elrod said LCA wanted the vision of Christian education to be strong in the community, “for it to be vibrant so that students could be trained not just strong academically, but in their faith, so they could go out and change the world instead of having the world change them.”
Elrod said he was also thinking about the people who started the campus and had the faith to break the ground over 25 years ago “and now we’re doing our part to continue that legacy and to come together and continue to educate students for the glory of God. And God has blessed Lakeland greatly.”
Elrod thanked God for His faithfulnesss to Lakeland, His strength and love for Lakeland. Elrod asked God to bless the building project.
LCA Board Vice President Lindsay Gergely said she knows LCA has been talking about this project for years and when they picked Saturday for the groundbreaking, they thought that date was so far out.
“But we’re here and from today on, there’s going to be more digging, more building,” she said. The building will be available for occupancy in fall 2026.
Bosch said they wanted to end their time during the program part of the event with prayer for God’s blessing for the project and what it will do for the community.
“God, we dedicate this building to you. We dedicate it to students who are going to be equipped with a discerning faith and with the academic excellence that’s going to propel them into future careers and impacts they’re going to have on this community and around the world. We are so excited about what you are going to do through this facility,” Bosch said.