Dear Friends,
St. Dunstan’s Academy has been on the hunt for a campus site since the fall of 2021. We have exciting news to share: after fifteen different property investigations, four offers placed, and months of strategizing, the school made an offer on 176 acres in Nelson County, Virginia, and the seller accepted it. Praise God for the answer to many prayers from many people—and thank you all for your encouragement, contributions, and interest over the last year and a half! For a closing date, our realtor suggested May 19th—unbeknownst to him, the Feast of St. Dunstan! Lord willing, we will have property in hand very soon.
The site, a long-time farm, sits in its own small valley of fields and woods, streams and hills, peace and quiet. The Priest, a well-known mountain on the Appalachian Trail, looks over the property from just a few miles to the west, and Three Ridges Mountain sits prominently to the north. With mountains on three sides and an expansive southern view, the property is exactly the kind of quiet foothold we’ve been praying for (see pictures below). There is a nineteenth-century farmhouse for our faculty to use, as well as two bank barns and a few other outbuildings we can use as home base while we get to work building the school.
Founding Campaign
With the campus property under contract, we are excited to enter the next stage of our project. There is much to do before we can open our doors and start teaching young men to work, pray, and study with full hearts. Among other things, we are preparing to begin construction as soon as we are able to obtain building permits.
But even before we break ground, you can help! If you are not already doing so, would you commit to praying for St. Dunstan’s? We have set aside Thursday’s for fasting and prayer. We will also be formally launching our founding campaign in April, asking supporters to join in this venture. Donations given today go towards this campaign to launch our school.
Thanks to the generosity of our lead donors, we have over two-thirds of the funds necessary to purchase our campus property. That leaves us with $350,000 in additional costs to finish paying off the land. We also need help with projects on the property:
- The Great Hall. We plan to build this dining hall, hearth, and large assembly area by the fall of 2024 for our inaugural cohort of students. It will allow us to house and feed the boys and gather the whole campus together for songs, stories, merriment and worship in the time before our chapel is built.
- Faculty Housing. We are currently recruiting first-rate faculty who will work and live alongside our students. We hope to have two more faculty houses built by the time we have students on campus.
Will you join with us? Both monthly donors and one-time gifts will help make this vision into a reality.
Contribute online or mail a check to: St. Dunstan’s Academy,
PO Box 1094 Waynesboro, Virginia.
God bless you all!
-Thomas
