Giving to Lafayette Christian School

Lafayette Christian School excels in Christ-centered education and equips each unique child to love and serve God in all of life. Tuition cannot pay all operating expenses, tuition assistance and capital improvement expenses. As a result, gifts from LCS families, friends, alumni, businesses and foundations are critical to ensure that LCS will carry out its mission for many future generations.

Here are some of the many ways your gifts help LCS carry out its mission:

Special Events

  • Apple Pie Sales: Each year in October the school’s gym is turned into an apple pie factory. Thousands of apples are pealed, sliced, placed into piecrusts and covered with a secret mixture of cinnamon, butter and flour. Over 5,000 are made, frozen and sold to the public each year. Hundreds of volunteers are needed each year to make this a success. Proceeds are used to subsidize the cost of education.

  • Celebration of Faith: In the spring we celebrate God’s goodness and faithfulness through a banquet/auction. Volunteers gather gifts from many local businesses and others donate handcraft items. Our children prepare special art projects such as paintings, quilts and scrapbooks. There is both a silent and a verbal auction. This is a wonderful evening of celebration and thanksgiving. The total income is usually close to the tuition assistance budget. The Celebration makes it financially possible for many parents to send their children to our school.
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Annual Fund

Annual Fund gifts relieve the burden on tuition and assist with Lafayette Christian School’s daily needs. The Annual Fund also highlights the importance of participation in giving. The stronger the Annual Fund, the better equipped the school is to provide an excellent educational environment for students and to address the school’s most urgent needs, such as tuition assistance, equipment purchases and upgrades and building renovations. Your participation in the Annual Fund enables current students to receive Christian education of the highest quality.

The Annual Fund:

  • is a necessary component of the school’s operating budget; for the 2005-06 school year, it is a line item of $60,000
  • strengthens every program and activity of the school, from academics to athletics to fine arts
  • closes the gap between the cost of tuition and the actual cost of an LCS education

Lafayette Christian School Educational Foundation

The Lafayette Christian School Educational Foundation promotes, accepts and manages planned gifts, including but not limited to bequests from wills, distributions from trusts, gifts of appreciated securities, gifts of real or tangible personal property, and gifts of life insurance property, for the sole benefit of Lafayette Christian School.

  • Leave a Legacy The Foundation gives LCS families, alumni and friends opportunities to “Leave a Legacy” to the school that will benefit LCS for many years to come through the investment of gifted assets and annual distributions from the Foundation to the school.
  • Annual Distributions to LCS The Foundation makes annual distributions to LCS of 5% of the market value of Foundation assets. Funds held by the Foundation therefore will supplement tuition income and enable LCS to carry out its mission of “Excellence in Education, Centered in Christ” for many years to come.
  • Foundation Advisory Board The Foundation Advisory Board promotes and encourages the use of planned gifts, manages and monitors investment of Foundation assets and makes annual distributions from the Foundation to LCS.

Benefits of Gifts to LCS Foundation Many long-term needs of Lafayette Christian School can be addressed with planned gifts to the Foundation. Gifts can be specifically designated for the following focus areas:

  • Teacher Endowment It is our goal to increase the salary base of our teachers to a level comparable with teachers in public schools of our area. One way we hope to accomplish this goal is by building an endowment that will distribute funds each year to supplement teacher salaries. This will also reduce annual tuition increases, maintaining affordability of Christian education at LCS.

  • Tuition Assistance Endowment It is our goal that the Christian education at LCS will be available to children of all Christian families who agree with our mission and vision, even if the cost of tuition is prohibitive. One way we hope to help families struggling with the cost of Christian education is by building an endowment that will distribute funds each year to provide tuition assistance to families who have a documented need for tuition assistance.

  • Capital Improvement Gifts LCS exercises responsible stewardship of its building, grounds and equipment, but physical facilities, grounds and equipment have ongoing needs for maintenance, renovation, and sometimes replacement. Past capital drives provided the funds used to build, expand and renovate Lafayette Christian School facilities. As future renovation, expansion, equipment or other capital needs are identified, LCS may ask families, alumni and friends to consider major gifts and pledges over several years intended to meet those needs. The Foundation will hold and invest all gifts designated for LCS capital improvements until the LCS Board approves and begins the capital improvements.
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Planned Giving Advisory Services

LCS is a member organization of Barnabas Foundation. For more than 25 years, Barnabas Foundation has been advancing God's kingdom by providing quality planned giving and estate planning advisory services, helping caring Christians support charities that are important to them. Barnabas Foundation has assisted many friends of LCS to make informed planned giving and estate planning decisions, for the benefit of Lafayette Christian School. Barnabas Foundation’s services are confidential and free of charge to LCS supporters. The Barnabas Foundation can be contacted toll-free at (888) 448-3040 or on the web at www.barnabasfoundation.com.