By WENDY BYERLY WOOD Staff Writer
Mt. Airy News
MOUNT AIRY — More than 100 people took seats or stood in front of the new middle school addition entrance at Millennium Charter Academy on Monday morning for a checksigning and ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The event, which included several politicians and others involved in the project, marked the official opening of the new facility adjacent to the existing elementary school.
“About seven years ago, there was a seed planted and it began to grow,” said MCA Director Kirby McCrary as the ceremony began. “We are now opening a new field and will plant new seeds in this building, because our students are our fruit.”
Since its inception in September 2000, MCA has grown to include grades kindergarten through six. In August, it will house its first class of seventh graders. The expansion that was highlighted Monday includes a fourth- and fifth-grade wing as well as the middle school facilities.
“We’ve dreamed, and we’re seeing a lot of those dreams come true,” said Ken Gwyn, chairman of the Millennium Education Foundation. “In large part, our facility is because of the USDA’s belief in us.”
He compared the school staff, parents and students to his new Dodge truck as he recognized each of those groups of people.
“If anybody comes up to the curb and asks if it has a hemi (engine),” he said, “you say, ‘Yes,’ because there they are.”
Gwyn recognized Richard Vaughn and his wife, Betty Kay, for their financial and moral support.
“It has been only a few short years ago that Millennium was a vision,” said Richard Vaughn, an MCA grandparent. “One difference in a charter school and a public school is that public facilities are provided by the county, and charters must provide their own facilities.”
Vaughn said the facility on the MCA campus now is about a $5-million project.
“It would have been about $11 million if it was a public school,” he added, “so Millennium Charter Academy has saved every taxpayer about $300, or $6 million.
“And the school provides our parents and students with educational opportunities that weren’t previously available,” he continued. “It provides educational diversity to businesses looking to come into the area for their employees’ children.”
The expansion project was funded through donations to the school as well as a U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development loan. That loan was made official during the ceremony when a large oversized check was signed by U.S. Sen. Richard Burr and U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx.
The check for $4 million was issued as a Community Facility Guaranteed Loan through Surrey Bank & Trust.
Peter Pequeño, senior vice president and chief lending officer of SB&T and an MCA parent, said the completion of the project makes him proud both personally and professionally.
“Now that construction is complete, we will see additional investment in the community with the hiring of staff and the purchase of equipment,” Pequeño said. “But the most valuable investment of the project is the children.”
Pequeño noted that the school, since its inception, has been a community effort.
“The equity raised came from the generosity of local businesses and individuals,” he said. “It was financed locally (by SB&T) and built by a local company (John S. Clark Co.).
“For a bank of our size, financing a project this large would not have been possible without the support of the USDA Rural Development division.”
Foxx said, “Mount Airy is such a positive place to be, and I think Millennium Charter is one example of what happens when people in this community want to see something happen. I feel like an aunt, because I’ve been involved (with MCA) since I was in the North Carolina House. I was here when the first building was dedicated.
“It is known that good education requires two things. One is a good principal and the other is the involvement of parents. And you have the strong support of grandparents and others in your community,” she said. “You are showing the way of how things should be done.”
All of the speakers gave a lot of the credit for the USDA loan to John Cooper, state director for USDA Rural Development, but Cooper passed much of the credit on to W.T. Sorrell and his staff.
“It wouldn’t be possible without you,” Cooper said to those in attendance, “the parents, the leaders, the ones willing to put money into it.”
Burr observed, “Currently the Census Bureau estimates that the North Carolina population will grow 53 percent in the next 23 years. That can only happen if we grow and invest in our state. We will be the seventh-most-populated state, and we need to make sure there is an infrastructure to support that.
“Seldom do we stop and realize we are only behind California in the number of graduates we have out of higher institutions on an annual basis.
“Communities aren’t about bricks and mortar. They are about the people. We’re the seed money, but you make that seed money grow.”
PHOTO CAPTION: Us Sen. Richard Burr signs a $4-million check to the Millennium Charter Academy on Monday while John Cooper, state director of USDA Rural Development (right), and Richard Vaughn, an MCA grandparent, holds the check and U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, N..C. 5th District, watches.
