St. Joachim begins new era

The Second World War will finally end at St. Joachim Parish School

this September.

For the last two years, the Costa Mesa church and private school

has been engaged in the process of demolishing its aging buildings

and replacing them with state-of-the-art facilities. Among the

structures that came down last year were buildings that had served as

barracks at the Santa Ana military base in the 1940s.

When students return for class on Sept. 8, they will find more

than 30,000 square feet of new facilities: a two-story classroom and

office building and the school’s first-ever gymnasium, both of which

are in the final stages of construction.

“It’s fabulous,” said Martha Harper, a St. Joachim parent who

donated to the school’s fundraising campaign. “We’re really looking

forward to the new school year. There’s so much space. It’s beyond my

expectations.”

St. Joachim, a private Catholic school, has classes from

pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. In recent months, classrooms

and the library have been located in temporary buildings around the

small campus.

Nearly a decade ago, the parish began making plans for renovation.

The parish was constructed in 1946 and the school in 1949, with an

additional school building added in the early 1960s. The original

church, long since demolished, also originally was part of the

military base.

The total estimated cost for the construction was $7.5 million,

and the parish has raised nearly that amount. John Stoneman, the

fundraising coordinator for St. Joachim, said the project needed

approximately $800,000 for completion.

The first $4 million for the St. Joachim renovations came from

the John and Dorothy Shea Foundation, which offers grants to Catholic

schools nationwide. The school also raised funds from its own

parishioners and from other donors in the community. Stoneman said

some of the parishioners have made additional pledges to donate money

totaling more than $2 million, and that the Diocese of Orange offered

to loan the school $1 million to pay for the last of the work.

“I don’t think there’s any question that we’ll have to use part of

that $1 million loan,” Stoneman noted. “Obviously, the pledges aren’t

going to come in quickly enough to finish the project. I’d like to

not to have to use all of it.”

The construction work itself is nearly finished. In renovating the

grounds, crews retained only the building from the 1960s, although

they retrofitted it for earthquake safety.

New at the school next month will be science laboratories, a music

appreciation room, a computer area, a larger library and classrooms,

and the new gym, which will also double as a multipurpose room for

the church.

“We’re going to have a beautiful facility from the standpoint of

teaching,” Stoneman said.