Capital Campaign

The Venta Edge

Venta Preparatory School was opened in September 1981, housed in a facility that was owned by its founder Dr. Agatha Sidlauskas. Dr. Sidlauskas, known to everyone as ‘Doc’, purchased an old farm in Carp, Ontario in 1958. The farm became the venue for Camp Venta – a summer  camp which operated from 1958-1979 as an off-shoot of the Child Study Centre programme at the University of Ottawa.

 
Since the founding of the school, more than 400 students have passed through the doors of that old summer camp facility. The original buildings were renovated, insulated and refurbished in  1981 for the opening of the school. When VPS was incorporated as a registered charitable organization in 1982, Dr.Sidlauskas donated the original buildings, and the land on which they sat, to the new corporation: Venta Preparatory School.
 
Since that time there have been many changes and additions to the original buildings. Even so, the fact remains that the structures were originally built to house a summer facility. Still structurally sound, these buildings have served their purpose well, but they are now wearing out. In our current facilities, we manage. We cannot claim, however, that they approach the ideal. We need a new, purpose-built school to provide the optimal environment in which our students can live and learn.
 
To our current students, their parents and our alumni I make the following pledge: VPS is not a small school trying to become a big one. We are a small school trying to remain small. Our strength is in our ‘smallness’: our ability to remain focused on the needs of each individual child, to know all of our families and to teach children, not simply to deliver a curriculum. We will not lose who we are. We know that we have a unique programme. Now we need a facility that will allow both our students and our programme to develop to their fullest potential.
 
The task before us is daunting, but we have no choice. We must re-build. If Venta is to continue to serve the needs of its students and the broader community, everyone whose lives have been touched through the years will have to help us. We are counting on your help to get the message
out that we are here, that we have an amazing programme and that this new school will be an asset to the whole community.
 
Marilyn C. Mansfield