From a Church to a Factory: Where is ICHS Today? As stated in a previous newsletter, our alumni base is our history; they remind us where our school has come from. Our history is very important as we often seek to learn and grow from it. Cedar Grove was founded in 1968, as Pastor Parr and Pastor Phil Fisher desired to start a school with a safe Christian environment for the children of the North Philadelphia area to learn and be educated in. For many years, Cedar Grove accomplished this desire to bring hope and safety to the students that attended there. In 1998, the school changed its name to International Christian High School to reflect the changing ethnicity of the neighborhood and to reflect their approved status with SEVIS for international student enrollment. The need for additional space, and the sale of the Cedar Grove property led Ben Brittin, the school Administrator to Luis Londono, who had recently purchased a Cardone building on Tabor Avenue and was looking for a ministry opportunity. This new location was truly a work of the Lord. Through much thought and prayer Ben Brittin felt lead to pursue this opportunity further. This appeared to be a God given opportunity and International Christian High School moved to Tabor Avenue. The school moved in June of 2018, and began classes only three months later. The Lord truly did answer prayers that year and continues to do so as the school continues to bring hope and safety to the children that attend it. The new building has been a huge improvement to ICHS over the past three years. The school has been able to expand greatly and increase their enrollment numbers each year due to the extra space that the new building has provided. The building has also allowed for better security for our students allowing them to feel safe in a better neighborhood. It has also presented a more professional space elevating the standard of both our faculty and students in their day to day activities. The school has also been able to pour into many community ministries and also help support a middle school, all within the new building. There is also potential to expand even more within the new building to develop a vocational space and trade school. Overall, the new space has been a huge improvement to the school over the past three years and has allowed ICHS to continue their mission of providing a safe, Christian environment to their students. Our rich history has helped us become who we are today as we have grown and learned from things within our past. Each of you, as alumni, have helped shape ICHS into what it is today and have helped each student that has walked through our hallways in their journey through high school. While your role in the history of the school has been paramount, we also invite you to become part of our future. With this new alumni network we hope to establish relationships with each one of you where you will then have the opportunity to pour your experience into the current students of ICHS. To help us reconnect, we invite you visit ICHSphila.org/alumni by clicking the ‘Alumni’ button below to fill out the alumni sign-up form to be updated on all the new developments that ICHS is working on for the future. We look forward to advancing the work of the Lord together through ICHS as one community with each of you. | 