Testimonials

Yvonne Ferguson, mother of two boys at Epiphany and also a volunteer says of the school’s impact on her children, “I love this school. It has helped to give my children confidence in themselves and it has given me a sense of security about them. The best part is that they have a well-rounded program here, they are able to do things outside of the school that teach them more about the world they live in. There is a component of the student’s enrollment in which parents are required to take an active role in their children’s education. Volunteering here is great because this is such a special place for the children and it helps me to be more connected with both my children and the faculty of the school.”

Aurelie Couette, an intern teacher at Epiphany, credits the passion and commitment shown by faculty and the earnestness of the students with forcing her to re-consider her career path. “Originally I wasn’t planning on becoming a full teacher, but now I might do it. I had planned on getting into International Relations after my internship at Epiphany, but after being here I am not sure. It has been great interacting with the students and everyone here really cares about them.”

Though seemingly blessed with a wonderful faculty, generous donors, and do-everything staff, Ms. Daly says that there are goals still to be met, needs yet to be filled. “Quite bluntly, we need money. We are still paying off this building which I think was sort of this great, giant leap of faith. We need a million sort of in-kind things. We need volunteers all the time. We serve three meals a day and we don’t have a cook. We need tutors. We have an amazing volunteer army that staffs this place and we need more.”

Home at Last

As the official January 3^rd school opening draws near, it becomes evident just how much the staff, faculty, and especially the children have anticipated life in the new facilities. The location adjacent to the Shawmut Red Line MBTA station is ideal, and the site at Sharp Street will allow for greenspace for Epiphany Members and community residents alike to enjoy. While grateful to all the people and places that have welcomed them in their many hours of need, there is no turning back for the Epiphany school and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’m so excited to have a science class. Until now, I’ve been so limited on what I can do just because I didn’t want to bring some of the materials into the classroom if we weren’t going to be using them because you’d have to bring it back and forth with no place in the room to store it. There are things that I have that I haven’t been able to put out because there was no room for them – I have miniature skeletons and things that I think the kids would love but we couldn’t just leave them out and there was no science lab or glass cabinets to leave them in so that they could be seen and accessed easily by myself.

It will be so great for me not to have to carry in six handfuls of things to do an experiment and then carry them back out and clean them up. It is such a difference to be able to have a science lab and a place where we can store things. I am very excited. It means so much to be able to tell the kids ‘this is it… we’re here to stay.’ I mean, no matter where we’ve been, the kids have felt at home, but this is really their home and things can go up and stay up. In our old place there were walls that you couldn’t put holds in and hang things up, but now we have our own place.”

In just four short years, many of the ideas and principals put into practice by the Epiphany School have reaped significant, if subtle rewards. Sidney Baptista, a 14-year-old former student has enrolled in the acclaimed Willington-Northhampton School in East Hampton and he has returned on this day to visit with faculty and friends, a true success story, while familiar faces like the Reverend Eugene Rives of the Ella J. Baker House also came calling. And if imitation truly is the sincerest form of flattery and a measure of success, then the Epiphany School must be doing quite well for no fewer than seven schools are currently basing their models on the school.

“I do think that there is a need for an Epiphany School in Boston. It seems to be evidenced by the fact that we have siblings that are admitted, everyone seems to send their kids, and we get lots and lots of applications. Also the kids don’t leave. Now that doesn’t mean that there aren’t about a million things to do differently. We have a lot to learn – a lot to learn. But we have parents who are on the board and we have a parents committee and we are open minded to learn.”

And though there might still be some skeptics, though few indeed, even the most jaded observers can’t help but see that the dreamers have graduated to become true visionaries.