From Kellogg's Students to a Church on Packard Road
The Ann Arbor Seventh-Day Adventist Church traces its beginning to a children's Sunday school that Dr. John Harvey Kellogg sent to the University of Michigan. In 1891, a small group of Adventist medical students arrived in Ann Arbor to study. On Sabbaths they worshipped privately; on Sundays they gathered children from the neighborhood for a Sunday school held in a building near Pontiac Trail and Broadway Street, not far from the university hospital. Each fall, when the medical students returned for another year of study, forty to sixty children returned with them.
One of those children became a charter member of the Ann Arbor Seventh-Day Adventist Church (AASDA) when it was officially organized in 1895 with about twenty-one charter members. The little congregation soon bought a small red-brick church building on the corner of Liberty and Division streets. In 1907, just seven years later, they sold that building and constructed a wood-frame church on White Street (referred to in the congregation's early history as "Church Street").
The Sabbath Tradition in Ann Arbor
As a Seventh-Day Adventist congregation, AASDA keeps the biblical seventh-day Sabbath. Members gather for worship on Saturday, the day Adventists regard as the day of rest set apart in Genesis. The congregation's history is filled with references to Sabbath worship, Sabbath school, and the rhythm of a six-day work week followed by a day of communal rest and study.
For more than 130 years this Sabbath-keeping rhythm has shaped the congregation's life in Ann Arbor. Children's ministry, church school, and adult worship have always been woven together at AASDA, with the conviction that what is taught on Sabbath and what is taught during the week should reinforce one another.
A Schoolhouse at the Heart of the Congregation
Children have been central to AASDA from the beginning. By the middle of the twentieth century, with a growing number of children in the pews, the congregation decided that providing a Seventh-Day Adventist education was more urgent than building a new sanctuary. They began a building fund. One family even mortgaged their farm to make a significant contribution.
In 1950, the church school opened with twenty-one students in the home of its first teacher, Dorothea Williams. After that first year, classes met in rental spaces around the area - the Valentine School on Ypsilanti-Saline Road near State Street, the Robinson School on Ypsilanti-Saline Road near Carpenter Street, and a portable on Platt Road near Packard Street. Eventually, property was purchased on what was then an underdeveloped, unpaved Packard Road, at the congregation's present location. The site was described at the time as being "way out in the country." It was part of a larger farm; the Cobblestone Farm House still stands across the street from the church, and the property where the school sits is said to have been the farm's peach orchard.
In 1953, a cement-block schoolhouse was built. It served the Ann Arbor SDA school for nearly thirty years and later became Little Lamb nursery, and is now being remade into a community ministry building. As enrollment grew, a portable unit was added at its side to handle overflow. Plans for a larger school were drawn by church member and architect Thomas Yaste, designed for fifty to sixty students. Members, students, and the pastor worked side by side on the construction. The new building opened for the 1979-1980 school year and still needs and still receives the attention of many loving, caring hands.
Enrollment later declined and Ann Arbor Junior Academy closed for five empty years. Through much prayer and diligent effort, the school reopened in 1997 under the name Ann Arbor Adventist Elementary School (AAAES), serving grades 1 through 8.
The Packard Road Campus
The congregation's campus sits at 2796 Packard Street, on the southeast side of Ann Arbor. The original 1953 cement-block building, the 1979-1980 school designed by Thomas Yaste, and the surrounding grounds have been shaped by decades of volunteer labor from church members. The Cobblestone Farm House across the street, a city landmark preserved as a living-history site, is a reminder of the agricultural setting the church and school moved into during the early 1950s. Behind it, the fields once farmed by the Cobblestone family were later developed by the city into Buhr Park.
Office hours for the school, which shares the campus with the congregation, run Monday through Thursday, 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The campus is closed Fridays and Saturdays, in keeping with the Adventist practice of keeping the Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.
Mission and Philosophy
The school's mission statement reads: "We, at AAAES, desire to pass on to students a Christian faith, a commitment to Jesus, and responsibility to the world around us. That task is accomplished most effectively when our children's spiritual and academic growth are combined to strengthen church, home, and school ties. We desire our children to believe in the teachings of Christ, to share in its gospel commission to the world and our community, and to dedicate their lives to fulfill the mission Christ has set for them."
The school's philosophy leans on Proverbs 1:1-4: "To know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of understanding, to receive instruction in wise behavior, righteousness, justice, and equity, to give prudence to the naive, to the youth knowledge and discretion." The school seeks to help each child experience what it calls "the joy of being a child of God, growing in faith, love, and purpose," with attention to spiritual, academic, emotional, social, physical, and cultural growth.
AAAES is part of the world-wide Seventh-Day Adventist educational system, which includes elementary and high schools, colleges, and universities in countries around the globe. In North America, the school is supported through the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists.
A Weekday Program, Monday Through Thursday
Ann Arbor Adventist Elementary School serves students in grades 1 through 8. Classes run Monday through Thursday from 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; the campus is closed on Friday. School communication uses Jupiter, an online grading system. Each student and parent has access to the student's account; login information is shared with families by email.
Students wear solid-colored polo tops with solid-colored bottoms, with sleeves required and no holes or frayed clothing. The full dress code is laid out in the AAAES Handbook. The school year carries three main events for families and the wider community: a Christmas Program, an Education Sabbath, and a Spring Concert. Students prepare for these programs over several months in advance.
For the 2025-2026 school year, both tuition and the registration fee are being offered free to all enrolled families. Financial assistance is also available through a needs-based program for families who need additional help. Admissions begins with an inquiry form, followed by enrollment forms (birth certificate, health appraisal, immunization waiver, medication and treatment permissions, photo release, record release, and a technology acceptable-use agreement), payment of the registration fee, an optional financial aid submission, and an in-person tour.
Giving and Volunteer Support
Support for the school flows through the Ann Arbor Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Two named funds help underwrite the ministry. The Church School Fund provides for educational resources, school updates, and the expansion of educational plans and school impact. The Student Sponsorship Fund gives students in need of financial support the opportunity to receive a Christian education.
Gifts can be made by check, payable to Ann Arbor Seventh-Day Adventist Church and mailed or dropped off at 2796 Packard Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48108-3257. Online giving is also available via Adventist Giving, with donations directed to "Ann Arbor SDA Church" under the categories "304.1 Church School Donation AAAES" and "303.1 AAAES Student Sponsorship Donation."
Volunteers are welcomed in several roles, including Bible Labs Coordinator, Home and School Coordinator, librarian, office support, specialty teachers (music, physical education, and similar), and speakers who give morning worships. Some of these roles can be fulfilled outside of school hours.
Pastors, Teachers, and Board
Pastor Jorge Neketela, MDIV, serves the congregation. The school is led by Owen Hamstra, who serves as both principal and the teacher for grades 1 through 8. The school board includes Marisol Garrido, PhD, as chairman, Pat Bingham as co-chairman, and Sal Bingham as treasurer, with the pastor also serving on the board.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
A reflection on the school's history, written by Gretchen Moon, closes with the words of Isaiah 51:1: "Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn." The school frames its present work in the same way it frames its past: as a continuation of a children's ministry that began in 1891 with twelve medical students and forty to sixty neighborhood children in a Sunday school near Pontiac Trail.
The same verses the school quotes from Matthew 19:14 - "Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven" - are the verses the congregation's earliest members lived by when they mortgaged a farm to build a school before they built themselves a new sanctuary. Today, the Ann Arbor Seventh-Day Adventist Church continues that mission on Packard Road, where Sabbath worship and weekday learning share the same campus and the same calling.