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Wellspring Academy

Project Updates

Project Update 2011-10

Wellspring Secondary School Project – October 2011

We have a goal. Raise 45,000 for the Arts Building throughout the month of December.

As we enter into the last month of 2011, we look back in absolute amazement: the progress, the blessings and the anticipation. As shown on the below campus map and throughout this monthly update, we are putting the finishing touches on the last two remaining buildings; everything else has been completed. The Arts Building will be our last building and we have a goal to raise $45,000 by the end of December. In the next few days, you will be receiving an invitation in the mail we are inviting you to help us raise the $45,000 to meet our goal.

Over the past month, our Rwandan crew has been steadily working towards completing the second Science Block. Last month they were busy installing doors and window frames.

In the couple weeks that followed the brickwork kept on going up and the ring beam was poured

Footings were dug (and then concrete columns and beams were poured to support the future veranda slab) on the face of the building that looks over the primary school section.

Also during the month of October, the trusses and purlins were welded and placed on top of the containers to provide a large workshop. The containers provide secure, dry and cost effective storage for the valuable tools and machinery plus several other items.

The below picture is taken from the Secondary school Outdoor Auditorim overlooking the parking lot, workshop and one of the many hills dotted with homes.

Stephane, one of our School Development staff, hardly had a chance to get a picture before the brickwork was done on the gables, the trusses and purlins put on, and the roof sheets speedily installed.

The above picture shows the second Science building headed towards completion of the veranda, next will be the veranda walkway.

After the work on the shell, the crew moved to the interiors where they plastered the walls plus poured concrete floor.

Once the walls and concrete floor were laid, the of the building’s ceilings got started and are currently working their way towards completion.

Up Next:

Finishing the floors, ceilings and concrete forming for the science lab sink units.

Installing the glass for the windows.

Finalizing the electrical installation.

Perhaps even throwing some paint on the walls!

October Project Cost (US):

$24,544 ~ Total

$885 ~ Landscaping

$3,512 ~ Admin building

$15,625 ~ Science Building

$4,310 ~ Outfitting & container costs

$212 ~ Other costs

Project Update 2011-08-09

Wellspring Secondary School Project – August & September 2011

And the project roars on towards completion. In total $1.5 million (US) has been invested towards the overall Wellspring Academy school. This includes both the completed Primary and the soon to be completed Secondary school; just 24% remains! The secondary completion is scheduled for 2012 and $340,000 (US) is what it will take to complete the overall project.

Over the past couple of months a lot of work was done to take the finished shells of the new administration block, staff room, kitchen and store room into finished facilities.

Bosco shown in the above picture installs the plumbing to all three new buildings. In the picture shown to the right, the team works to wards completing the ceilings.

Painting on the interiors, windows, doors, and ring beam was complete din the month of August.

Concrete pathways to connect all the new buildings together and to the rest of the school were poured.

Concrete and tile Countertops were built in the staff kitchen by Musonera

Moreover we were blessed to have DJ Devries and his wife Heather come out to serve with us once again. DJ designed and re-built the bridge on the primary school playground and designed and built the countertops and storage cupboards for the secondary school staff room with the help of Freddie and Benjamin. The staff can hardly wait to move into their new digs!

DJ doing a little sanding on the new counter tops

Picture below shows completed staff room

The secondary school campus as shown from across the parking lot. Almost there!

On the sports facilities, we made some good headway on the rockwork for the basketball court which is progressing along nicely.

Another view of the basketball court, which is quickly taking shape.

Project Update, End of September 2011

We roll into September Rockwork was completed on the basketball court for the bleachers and the rear retaining wall.

Given the deadline of the end of the year approaching, we also have moved ahead on the next secondary science block lab with some pace. Foundations were dug

The fundi’s shaped the rocks, and placed them to hold up the walls of the building

The windows have now been set and the brickwork should reach the ringbeam in a few weeks.

Brickwork was launched while window frames were being welded up in the shop

Up Next:

-Brickwork on the second science block

-Forming and pouring the ring beam and the veranda slab supports

-Welding the trusses and purlins

-Cleaning up and leveling the soil base of the future basketball court (and letting the heavy rains help compact the surface).

August / September Project Cost (US):

$33,060 ~ Total

$1,089 ~ Landscaping

$3,713 ~ Admin block

$5,632 ~ Basketball court

$499 ~ Kitchen & storage area

$16,832 ~ Science lab

$5,295 ~ Labour

Project Update 2011-06

Wellspring Secondary School Project – June 2011

This month we will start off by letting you know that we pushed another container off to Rwanda. With the excellent help from dedicated volunteers, we spent Saturday June 25^th packing the 20ft container. This year, we partnered with Youth For Christ and worked together to fill the container with valuable materials. Materials sent over to Rwanda in this shipment range from basketball court equipment, plywood, commercial construction equipment and other valuable items that are difficult to source in Rwanda.

On the Rwanda side, the month of June brought some great progress that helps clean up the look of the school and gets us a lot closer to having functional administration, staff, kitchen and storage facilities for the secondary school. Surprise torrential June rains together with a delayed wire transfer conspired to slow down some work towards the basketball court but nonetheless preparations were done for the basketball court that will make July a more effective month:

Minani welds the purlins together, a careful balancing act of skill, strength and precision.

Secondary students walk past the storage & kitchen facility on the far right and the staff room.

Nzabamwita, lays the brickwork on the gable ends of the buildings.

Musonera on the right installs the vent block on the gable end of the staff room.

Also over the course of June the roof went up on the buildings; Minani at the top, Freddie in the middle, the welder on the ladder, a couple of helpers on the ground. David is supervising (or taking cover) in the doorway.

As hoped we were able to get the roofs onto the three new projects that we have been working on simultaneously. The Welder was able to put the trusses and purlins on the staff room and kitchen/ storage building.

Plastering the interiors of the admin and staff room was the next task that was completed and the tubular steel to hold up the ceilings was also installed.

A crew of casual laborers were brought in for several weeks of brutal work hand digging the drainage ditch, foundation trenches and bleacher levels of the basketball court in preparations for the rock work.

The continually improving picture of the Wellspring Secondary school

Up next for July:

Raising funds for the Science block and soccer field with initial work to get underway on the Science block in August
Install ceilings, glass and electrical on the new staff room and admin block
Pour floors on the kitchen and storage room
Plastering interior of the new kitchen/storage room
Paint the interiors of the new buildings
Begin the rockwork on the basketball court.

June Project Cost (US):

$22,344 ~ Total

$4,633 ~ Landscaping

$8,861 ~ Admin block

$1,536 ~ Basketball court

$2,527 ~ Kitchen & storage area

$1,336 ~ Soccer field

$3,451 ~ Labour

Dowload a copy of the update in PDF

Project Update 2011-05

Wellspring Secondary School Project – May 2011

Building off last months surprise land shaping of the future sports facilities; we decided to secure the bottom corner of the future soccer field with some significant retaining walls (anticipating the eventual expansion and final leveling of the field). The soccer field is down towards the valley floor at the bottom of the campus.

Construction crew build up the retaining wall with massive boulders which they chip & chisel into manageable pieces to eventually lift and build the wall.

Massive retaining wall quickly builds into form

Wellspring Academy kids play a soccer game on existing field; final score 1:1. New wall can be seen on left hand side of field.

On the landscaping side of the equation, we at long last completed some remaining work down at the primary school play area: Musonera and his pals extended a retaining wall to build a new shade area for the kids during their break time (above left) and poured a proper concrete path leading down to the primary school soccer field (above right)

Here Nzabamwita works on finishing the concete for the new shade area (left) with the completed path and handrails (a great new game for the kids) on the right leading down to the primary sand soccer field.

We also used the leftover cinder blocks from the Wellspring Academy primary school storage room to build a small garbage shed to keep the school nice and clean looking

Onto the secondary school project, we continued to push up the admin, staff room, and staff kitchen.

Fundi’s work on the brickwork for the secondary school staff room. (we completed up to the level of the ring beam as seen in the picture below (behind the shipping container).

Trusses and purlins were put onto the Admin Building with the Staff room finished up to the ring beam. Foreground (Admin Building) Background (Staff room).

Up Next in June

Roofing the admin building, staff room, and staff kitchen/ storage.
Brickwork on gables
Plastering interiors of the new buildings
Install ceilings on the new buildings
Launch the rockwork on the basketball court
Shipping 20ft container from NA to Rwanda

May Costs (in US):

$24,918 ~ Total

$1,667 ~ Landscaping

$1,379 ~ Science Lab

$2,732 ~ Labour

$7,541 ~ Admin Block

$5,254 ~ Soccer Field

$6,345 ~ Basketball Court

Dowload a copy of the update in PDF

Project Update 2011-04

Wellspring Secondary School Project – April 2011

Progress, progress and then more progress capture the essence of April. And by the grace of God progress will continue.

It was an amazing month! Bricks went up, not one, not two, but three giant earth-moving machines took to the campus and carved up the earth to make way for our sports facilities.

It’s has been a marathon construction project! We continue to run strong; we have fabulous supporters, buildings are going up quickly, volunteers are rolling up their sleeves and the construction crew is working strong and steady. In short, we are deeply encouraged and incredibly thankful.

So what as accomplished?

Brick walls for the secondary school staff kitchen and storage room were built below the Multipurpose Auditorium; the two pictures below show the before and after.


Before Picture: Future site of staff kitchen below the Multipurpose Auditorium.	After Picture: In-progress construction of staff kitchen.

Walls of the administration building and staff room started going up this month. Windows and doors were made by the welders plus installed along with the doorframes.

Last month the floor was poured.

And this month bricks, windows and doorframes were installed. This picture is taken from the reception area looking towards the staff room and Multipurpose Auditorium.

Above is another view of the Administration building, which will have a reception, three offices, a washroom and a sick room for the secondary school.

Volunteers joined us again!

We were so blessed to have a carpentry team of two Randy Liske and James Smith come to Rwanda from Alberta. They applied their skills for two weeks towards building science lab workstations, drawers, and computer science workspace. They did an incredible job enhancing the classrooms with solid workstations that look great and will last a long time. All the arborite, sheets of plywood and drawer glides came in the 40ft container shipment.


Above computer lab working surface shown above which is around the perimeter of the room.	In the science lab, student workstations are also around the perimeter of the room with a nice workstation up front from the teacher.

And the engines just roared!

The big surprise for April was when the Carver brothers joined the crew on the campus. Seven years ago, it was the Carver brothers who donated the John Deere Bulldozer to Christian Life Assembly. After Jeffery, our Country Director gave the site tour and Carver brothers saw the scope of work remaining on the sports facilities said… “you need to find us an excavator”. Their hearty little bulldozer did all of the landshaping on the entire project to date but with the brothers only being in Rwanda for a week, they wanted to ensure they could quickly move things forward in a very short period of time. They promptly set out to find one excavator, brought to site, started it up and within an hour it overheated. As the mechanics worked to fix the first excavator, the set out to find another excavator. What they found was a newly imported CAT 320 excavator in impeccable condition. This is the kind of equipment that makes the earth vibrate and little kids pull a little closer to mom’s leg as it rumbles on by with plums of black smoke shooting into the air. Good times! By the time this massive machine came to the site, the mechanics had fixed the first one. And given that there were three operators and just three days left on their visit they said “we will keep both of the excavators” and they also said they would “back it up”. So for three long days, Dayna drove the dozer, Jim drove the fixed up excavator and Andy put his hands to the new exavator. With some help from additional labourors, plus dump trucks... they cleared out the spots for the arobics, weights and changerooms, a volleyball court, 2 basketball courts, and 2 tennis courts. They also got started digging out the soccer field expansion. It was the most dramatic week experienced yet on this campus as mountains of soil were moved in order to prepare the ground for the sports facilities.

Delivery of CAT #2 arrives at the Wellspring Campus. Its arrival is no small feat.

Dozer shown in the background has been hard at work for 7 years shaping the hillside campus. In the foreground does its work.

Dozer rumbles along.

Work in full swing. Basketball courts to be on the left, tennis on the right (beyond the bulldozer) and the aerobics/weights/change-rooms on the level ground in the foreground.