A New Year’s Resolution:
Getting Students Out of the Basement

Pierced by the need to serve their children educationally and formatively through a classical, Catholic education, parents formed Coeur du Christ Academy, a private, classical academy in the Catholic tradition, in April of 2022 and held their first community event on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, committing the academy’s future to the most precious and merciful heart of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

He has been a most affable and effective patron and on this First Friday of 2025 we are calling on Him, and all of you, to help Coeur du Christ Academy take that next step in service to His children. A recent matching fund (with a goal of $1.25M) has been established to help our students out of the old, dilapidated basement and to triple the size of our student-body, creating a greater impact on this growing town which has been absent a Catholic high school for over 50 years!  


Coeur du Christ owns the campus, only two blocks from daily mass at our local diocesan parish, but the building is in dire need of repair and we have a high impact need that we cannot delay. If you feel compelled to read further as to the need and poverty of spirit, Thank you, and may God bless you abundantly! 

Our story has been one of many miracles, hardships, and consolations in our short 3 years of existence…

• Classrooms with no walls: Two weeks prior to opening our doors in the fall of 2022, Coeur du Christ had no classrooms—or walls, for that matter—to partition the 5,800 sq. ft. basement. In early August, President, Genavive Edman, and Board Chair/Athletic Director, Kellen Clemens, had to convince a trucker who had driven from North Carolina not to give up on the delivery when there was a misunderstanding in the paperwork and no docking station available for offloading the 12 pallets of plastic bricks—the miracle solution for this start-up academy. Thankfully, by unloading the entire truck manually and building walls throughout the night, Coeur du Christ had classroom walls just in time for the start of school. Until we have fundraised enough to pull permits and break ground, we continue to house our faculty and students in the four classrooms of the basement, temporarily using the Everblock system (plastic lego-like bricks). These temporary walls are not soundproof, nor are they aesthetically pleasing, but we are grateful for them all the same!
• Old, damaged floors: With our Irish Culture & Dance class and PE needing to take place within the 1906 facility, our wooden floor boards are rapidly deteriorating. When we sweep (we handle all cleaning in-house in an effort to save money and to form servant leaders), the floors splinter and separate further. When we roll our piano in and out of the chapel and lunchroom (we have many students interested in the arts, see article here), it is clear that our piano would also appreciate a smoother transition for the sake of carrying a tune!
  
  
• Lack of locker rooms & ADA accommodations: We are very proud of our athletic program (see last month’s article) but need more infrastructural support for our athletes who need locker rooms to change for practice or accommodations for injuries. For example, last year, one of our star athletes could not make it down the stairs on his crutches so we had to bring class to him in the lunchroom due to our lack of ADA access. We desperately need ADA compliant bathrooms, entrances and exits, and an elevator for those who cannot take the stairs.
  
  
• Fire sprinklers and a leaking basement: The city has been extremely cooperative with our efforts as we seek to improve our downtown location and to serve the youth of this community during a very real growth challenge in the local school district. All that said, we are only allowed to serve up to 60 students at this time for the sake of safe escape routes (in the event of an emergency). In order to serve up to 150 students in our new and expanded building, we will also need to install fire sprinklers throughout the campus. Ironically, we have plenty of water to go around and our building would most likely never catch on fire given that we have a section of an old rock wall foundation that resembles Lourdes after major rainstorms, making our headmaster’s office in particular, an almost miraculous structure! 

• And the list goes on…(see our buildout page)

Given the long list of buildout needs, readers may ask, “Why on earth would someone send their child to this school?” And the answer is that the heart and the mission mean so much more than the bricks and mortar. Our CDCA families are extremely pleased with and grateful for Coeur du Christ Academy and the impact it’s having on their children’s lives, education, and faith. Many others are considering moving to Coeur d’Alene to attend this uniquely mission-driven school. Given our waitlist, we feel confident that God will continue to provide us with laborers and a fruitful harvest for His kingdom. We simply need a better facility to support our magnanimous and worthwhile goals for our students and the broader evangelistic nature of this facility.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Being poor in spirit certainly has its benefits and we don’t intend to change that spirit after our renovations have been completed. In fact, it is very important to us to keep Christ at the heart of everything and to foster a very real sense of humility and service amongst our school’s culture. All that said, it would be such a blessing to know that our facility is not keeping us from reaching our full potential and that we can improve our opportunities and the formation of our students for many years to come, with a more permanent and welcoming environment.



Additionally, with a new and improved facility (already drafted by architects and approved by the city) the CDCA Board of Directors and Advisory Board has established a long term sustainable plan for faith-based education. Post-buildout, the school’s campus will be leasable for events on the weekends (Christian, cultural, private, and evangelistic) to offset the cost of operations and overhead, making our generous tuition model more sustainable—and private, classical, Catholic education an opportunity for all who are interested.

Regardless of the poor quality of our current building “Home is where the Sacred Heart is…” and we feel very much at home amongst our faithful faculty, students, families, and benefactors. God has been so good to us and we ask for His generous spirit to come down on this school in a very tangible way this year so that we can continue to serve generations of God’s young people as we inspire them to be Saints, Scholars, and Servants. Today we humbly ask… Will you add “Supporting Coeur du Christ Academy” to your list of new year’s resolutions? 

Be a Saint!

MAKE A TAX-EXEMPT DONATION

Find out more: coeurduchrist.org 
Support the cause: coeurduchrist.org/donate 
Call our development office at 208-219-7806

With sincerest gratitude,
Genavive Edman
President of the School
Professional, academic days v. Campus maintenance days


“Consider often that it is only the humble of heart that can enter into the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, converse with Him, and be loved by Him.” – St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690)