The Wesley Foundation of Mississippi State held a ground breaking ceremony Saturday in honor of the extension to be added to the building.
Construction will take place to extend the back of the current building on East Lee Boulevard. Foundation work began about a month ago, and the building is expected to be completed by April 2009.
The Wesley Foundation is the United Methodist campus ministry at MSU.
Director Hugh Griffith said the extension will allow the organization to comfortably hold its current student attendance as well as give the ministry room to grow.
Griffith said plans for the building’s addition began about six years ago.
“One of the first things we saw just immediately was we didn’t have enough space. At that time we were already a little tight in the space that we had, but we knew we didn’t have any space, any growing room,” he said. “That was about six years ago when the vision, the idea, really first came up. Four years ago we began raising money in this capital campaign called ‘Pressing On.'”
Griffith said the whole foundation is grateful to have the money needed to make the expansion.
“The original goal was to build more space, so we could serve more students, and to give ourselves growing room. We’ll have that,” Griffith said.
Will Carruth, a senior civil engineering major, has been involved at Wesley since 2004. Carruth said inadequate space has had a negative impact on the number of students who attend Wesley’s main weekly event called Insight, a time of worship and Bible study held on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m.
“Particularly at the start of the semester we were concerned that students were not coming back,” he said. “They didn’t have a place to sit or felt too crowded and cramped in our current facility.”
Griffith said the number of students attending Wesley is significantly higher than the number of students the main meeting room is meant to hold.
“Our meeting room downstairs has a comfortable capacity of about 100. You go past 100, and it gets crowded. It’s just not made for more,” he said.
Over the past year the foundation has exceeded the comfortable capacity.
“Last year we averaged about 140 or 150 at Insight, and through the first three weeks we’ve had more than 200 students in there each week,” Griffith said.
Architect Chris Cosper, who designed the extension, said the new space will seat 400 students.
He said this amount of room can greatly extend the ministry of Wesley.
“We’ll have the opportunity to have more [people] at our main weekly event,” Griffith said. “That gets us an opportunity to connect more [students] into growth groups and mission opportunities, which results in more students receiving the ministry of Wesley, hopefully resulting in more students growing in their faith and discipleship.”
Two hundred sixty donors contributed to the cost of the $875,000 contract. Griffith said the contributions have consisted of many smaller donations, some larger donations and several very large gifts of $100,000 to $200,000.
“Regardless of the size, they’re really all of equal importance because it’s taken all of those gifts to get to the point where we are,” said Griffith. “The support means a lot.”
About $160,000 has come from local and statewide churches, Griffith said.
Carruth said the foundation is already planning a way to welcome the new extension.
“We’re hoping to have one of our last few services of the year in our new building to kind of kick things off,” Carruth said. “We’re really excited. It’s been a long time coming.”