 Their sister organisation, the Integrated Education Fund (IEF), obtained funding for the college for a period of three months only, with the promise that the IEF would fund-raise for the college to help maintain it throughout its first year.The steering group, having secured guaranteed funding for three months went about enlisting the necessary 60 students (with a 30% balance from the minority religion), and the recruitment of principal and staff.The college eventually opened on a disused hockey pitch, in Whitehead, on the 1 September 1997, under the leadership of Eugene Martin, an experienced teacher and manager from Northern Ireland's first integrated school, Lagan College.