Tuesday marked the last Partners' Day.

Tuesday marked the last Partners' Day.
By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Charles Edmonds and Amber Reed were having fun crafting structures from colored toothpicks and miniature marshmallows, but the third-graders admitted feeling a little blue about their school closing.
"It's pretty sad," Charles said.
"Yeah, sad," agreed Amber.
"I've been here for five years. It's the first school I ever went to," Charles said. "All the teachers and all the principals we had -- this is the perfect school."
New Hope Academy, a private ecumenical school on the South Side, will close with the end of the school year.
Opened in 1996 as a joint effort among the Northeastern Ohio Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown, the Ursuline Sisters of Youngstown and St. Patrick Church, it took over the closed St. Patrick School building on Oak Hill Avenue, first offering pre-kindergarten through fifth grades and later expanding to eighth grade.
Financial woes
It will not reopen next school year because of financial problems.
Third-grader Katie Harris will miss the school and its teachers.
Her classmate, Symone McKinney, will miss her teachers, her friends -- and her community "partner" Chuck Schiffhauer.
And he'll miss her.
"It's really sad," said Schiffhauer, of Boardman, who visited the school Tuesday. "I put a tissue in my pocket, just in case."
Partners pay a portion of tuition for a child. They have provided the one-third of the school's $4,500-per-child funding not met by the academy's founders or tuition fees, said Pastor Bob Quaintance, New Hope board president. Partners visit the children they sponsor during Partners' Day events held at the school throughout the year.
Tuesday's was the last one.
"We're gonna miss her a lot," Schiffhauer said, adding that Symone sent him and his wife, Debbie, her school picture each year.
Principal Janice Vitullo said things are "upbeat" as children finish out the school year, with plans for trips to the circus and the Youngstown Playhouse and eighth-graders working on graduation projects.
"Some wonderful things have been accomplished here," she said. "... I think we've provided a foundation for children to be successful in whatever school system they now attend because they carry the values and mission of New Hope with them."
Letters to parents
Administrators have sent letters to all New Hope parents advising them of the options they have for the next school year, Vitullo said. Officials are working with other schools to help make transitions smooth.
Quaintance, who is pastor of Good Hope Lutheran Church in Boardman, said financial difficulties arose as enrollments slipped and six community schools opened within walking distance. Such schools receive state funding because they do not include a religious component.
"We've had a vision. It isn't just for tomorrow, it's for years ahead and because we've been here seven years, it's going to carry on," he said. "The kids here have had a chance to have a better future."
He wore a tie Tuesday with an image of Noah's ark beneath a rainbow. He called it a "hopeful tie."
"We need a rainbow," he said.
Quaintance said conversation continues in the hope that the partnership that founded the school can continue an educational endeavor to "make Youngstown a better place ... by focusing on children ... in an atmosphere that brings people together" across religious, racial, community and business boundaries.
The Rev. Edward P. Noga of St. Patrick Church, a New Hope founder, has mixed emotions.
"The ecumenical effort between the Lutheran and Catholic bishops was and still is a stellar opportunity for cooperation," he said. "Hopefully it shows other churches, other denominations that you can work together. It seems sometimes we're just worried about our theological differences, our organizational differences ...
"I think the children brought us together and reminded us of what we share."