The “Forever Home” for Seven Generations Charter School had its official ribbon-cutting opening ceremony May 4 in Emmaus.

Located in the former Rodale headquarters, the newly restored 61,000 sq. ft. building is now home to 500 students and staff. Alloy 5 Architectures and Skepton Construction took on the vision of sustainability so important to the school’s mantra.

Principal and CEO Amanda Cossman thanked community members, board members, families, as well as past and current students for coming out to the celebration. She told them there had been over 216 hours of construction meetings, architects, designers, 30 companies and 150 contractors helping build the new school, over a period of three years.

“It just feels like an exciting new chapter. We’ve been waiting for 14 years for this ‘Forever Home.’ This is really just a win for all of us,” Cossman told The Press following the ribbon cutting.

“We started in a rented facility. We had a 13 year lease. We wanted to purchase a property and really be able to design it for our sustainable mission vision,” Cossman said.

Jamie Clark, who is one of three fourth grade teachers, said her new classroom is “amazing. Love the windows and the space and the energy. The sunlight coming in definitely affects their energy.”

Clark told The Press she has 21 students. The younger grades have smaller classes. Next year, there will be a middle school added as a seventh grade is being introduced.

Cossman’s hope for her future graduates is “that they can make an impact. They learn in and about the community so they’re learning, ‘Hey, what I do impacts the community and what the community does impacts me’.”

Kai Garcia, Leland Naylor and Sam Stempert all attended Seven Generations Charter School together until fifth grade. They have fond memories of their days at the school and were invited as alumni to the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

“It was very fun because every single day we would go on a hike,” Stempert told The Press. Both he and Naylor agreed this type of activity helped their creativity.

Students love the new building telling The Press the old building was rundown and this one offers so much more for the students.