Nearly eight months after a tornado ripped through East Brainerd and demolished the Grace Baptist Church & Academy, work has begun to build a new church and school that officials hope is ready in another year and a half and could facilitate nearly doubling the size of the K-12 academy in the future.
“Across this campus, the landscape still shows the devastation of those storms on that Easter Sunday night and it’s still a shock to see,” Matt Pollock, the head of school at Grace Academy, said at a groundbreaking ceremony Saturday for the new church and school at the corner of Shallowford and Jenkins roads. “But it has become increasingly evident that Grace Baptist will be able to build back a ministry on this corner that will be stronger, safer and with even more opportunity to care for people in need and to teach young people through our academy.”
On April 12, 2020, a tornado destroyed 15 of the 17 buildings that made up the church and school on the 17-acre parcel. Hundreds of nearby homes, including many owned by those who are members at Grace Baptist Church, were damaged or destroyed when an EF3 tornado swept through parts of East Brainerd and Ooltewah.
The federal government has declared the tornado-ravaged parts of Chattanooga a disaster area, qualifying many damaged sites for Federal Emergency Management Agency aid and low-interest loans. Adam Love, senior pastor at Grace Baptist Church, said the church is still working with FEMA and its insurance company to help in the storm recovery, and the church is raising additional funds for the new campus.
The total cost of the building reconstruction will top $40 million, with plans for five interconnected buildings and room to expand both the upper and lower school at Grace Baptist Academy while still leaving 27% more green space than in the previous campus.