By Harold Reutter
harold.reutter@theindependent.com

Principal John Webber said the school has a $290,000 annual bond payment, due in two installments a year.

One installment is due in July and Webber said the school already has that money in hand.

The second payment is due in January and "The 500 Plan" is intended to raise money for that second bond payment and beyond.

Webber said the idea behind The 500 Plan is to enlist 500 people willing to donate $1,000, for a total of $500,000. He said that raising that much money would not only allow the school to be able to meet its bond payments through next January, but also to hire a development director to do public relations and further fundraising.

Webber said The 500 Plan kicked off on March 27 and several people have already given or pledged $1,000 to the campaign.

"Obviously, we would take smaller amounts or greater amounts," Webber said.

With the July bond payment already in hand, Webber said, there should be no reason why students should not begin classes on the present campus next August.

He said there would be a possibility that the school would have to give up its new building if it was unable to make a bond payment next January, but he was far from predicting that would happen.

"I have faith that we will have the January bond payment," he said. "This campaign is really about looking to the future."

If The 500 Plan reaches its goal of $500,000, that would make the next bond payments with $210,000 left over, Webber said. That $210,000 would help retire some debt, fund school operations and pay a development director's salary.

Webber said that even if a worst-case scenario did develop on the bonds, Heartland Lutheran could continue by moving its students to a new location.

Again, the principal does not anticipate that happening.

However, part of Heartland Lutheran's history includes teaching students in a church until the first school was built.

For the first year of Heartland Lutheran's operation, a handful of students met at Peace Lutheran Church until the first building on the Heartland Lutheran campus was completed. Students moved into that building in the middle of the high school's first year.

Bonds were later issued to build classrooms, a commons area for eating school lunches and other activities, and a gymnasium, all in a much larger building located just west of the original building, which still has classrooms used by the school's teachers and students.

The total cost of the new building and gymnasium is $3.6 million and the bond payments are being used to retire the debt incurred to build the second building. Webber said money to retire that debt has come from church and donor support.

The 500 Plan is an attempt to step that up to another level, put things on a very sound financial basis and be able to chart the future with the help of a development director.

Heartland Lutheran is in its eighth year and has 70 students.