Efforts are now underway to save it
Community leaders are organizing in an effort to save the Habersham Christian Learning Center. The center, which teaches Biblically based lessons to high school students who choose to attend, is grappling with a budget shortfall that could potentially force the center to lay off workers and eventually shutter its doors.
A community-wide summit is scheduled for Thursday, August 18th to educate the public about what HCLC does and discuss ways to support it.
READ: HCLC Summit to be held Thursday, August 18th
“We are making a big push to reeducate the community, to let them know we are still here, we are still viable, we still need their support,” says HCLC Executive Director Amy Walker.
Walker has been with HCLC for 22 years. She says the financial pinch started with the Great Recession and it hasn’t eased up since. “Along about 2008 a lot of people began to hurt,” she says. As the economy slipped, so did donations. “We haven’t picked back up since that time.” Walker says in the good years the HCLC Board of Directors was able to set aside funds in case of emergencies. Those funds are now depleted.
The center currently operates on a “bare minimum” budget of $134,000 a year. That includes salaries for three full-time employees, a part-time clerical worker, all utilities, insurance, building and vehicle maintenance and fuel (HCLC owns and operates a bus to transport students from the high school to classes at its building adjacent to the Habersham Ninth Grade Academy campus in Mt. Airy).
“We have cut back on clerical staff. We have cut back on salaries. Our teachers have never had benefits so we can’t cut back on that,” Walker says, “and we’ve tried to keep all of our expenses, insurance, bus fuel, as low as possible, so, the next point is to cut back on teachers.” There already aren’t enough of them. “We’re having to turn students away every semester,” she says, “and that breaks my heart.”
Although HCLC works in conjunction with the local public school system, it is not funded by the system and does not receive any tax dollars. While that allows the center to offer a faith-based curriculum, it means HCLC must raise every dime that it spends.
Click here to learn more about what HCLC has to offer
“We need an additional $30,000 a year to maintain what we’re doing,” says Walker, “plus we have a goal of adding another teacher so that we can serve more students.” Right now there are 106 students enrolled at HCLC. The four subjects being taught are: Dating and Relationships, Interacting, Life and Work Planning, and Survival Strategies. The courses are designed to give students practical skills for coping with life while also “empowering them to make sound decisions and enabling them to grow spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually.”
In the face of dwindling resources, right now the short term goal is to keep HCLC’s doors open, but Walker’s faith and determination don’t stop there. The long term goal, she says, is to grow. “The goal would be to add another teacher and therefore serve more students. We could do that in our current facility with the logistics in place now. Of course, a dream would be to add onto this facility.”
With enough donors, that dream can be realized.
Currently approximately 17 of the more than 150 churches in Habersham County support the Christian Learning Center. Those few churches provide approximately one-third of the center’s budget. Another third comes from individuals and approximately one-fourth of HCLC’s budget comes from United Way. The rest of the center’s funding comes from fundraising, grants, businesses and civic groups.
Local businessman David Irvin is one of a growing number of concerned citizens working to secure funding for HCLC. He’s one of the organizers of Thursday’s HCLC summit. Irvin wants the community to understand the role the Christian Learning Center plays in our schools and community. He also wants to open up new channels of support.
READ: Habersham Christian Learning Center Summit
In an email announcing the summit, Irvin writes, “It would seem with Christians being disheartened about prayer being removed from schools – along with Christianity and the name of Jesus being under attack – we would not want to see this unique organization fade away.”
Approximately 60% of HCLC’s students do not attend church. “When I first came here it was 40-50% who were unchurched,” Walker says. “Many of our students haven’t even opened or read from the Bible.”
For her, the calling is clear.
“One of our students nicknamed this place a ‘spiritual oasis,'” Walker says. “The Bible is our textbook. We are in a position to not only teach the principles that Jesus teaches us but we are in a position to help these young people practice those principles in their everyday life.”
To learn more about HCLC and how you can become a part of it, attend The Habersham Christian Learning Center Summit August 18th at Habersham EMC. ‘Munch and Mingle’ begins at 6:30 p.m. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. HEMC is located at 6135 GA Hwy. 115 in Clarkesville.
