First Christian Reformed Church in Everett, Wash., hosted the 100th anniversary celebration for Everett (Wash.) Christian School on May 15, the culmination of a year of special events. Melissa Patton, secretary of the Everett Christian School board and on the centennial committee, said the church’s “Dutch immigrant founders scraped and sacrificed to build the school in 1925-26.”
In that time the small grade school has occupied the same street corner, Patton said, serving families from around the working-class area north of Seattle, the nation's least religious metro area.
"How is that?” asked Matthew Kaemingk, a pastor and public theologian from St. Louis, who graduated from Everett Christian School in 1995 and delivered a keynote speech. “It is so clear that God’s faithfulness is the only thing carrying this small community through over so many years, and we praise and thank God for it.”
Patton said families come from local CRC churches and several other denominations. The school maintains decades-old traditions including an annual school picnic, kindergarten clown parade, and pairing grades within classrooms so older students can help younger students.
“Our school is really small, like 66-kids small,” student Kailene Nguyen said in a speech ahead of her June 3 graduation. “Everyone knows everyone, and honestly, that kind of community is the best. ... I don’t know exactly what comes next for me or for any of us. High school feels big and kind of scary. But God has been faithful to this little school for 100 years, so I know he will be faithful to us too, and for generations to come."
The board, recognizing the school’s teachers live in an area with one of the highest costs of living in the U.S., is working to build a new endowment fund to support raising teacher salaries. "You can't have a school without teachers," Patton said.