Our mission is to enhance, enrich and expand educational opportunities within the district and I am the board president. This year’s featured performer was “The Amazing Hondo,” a motivational magician. Hondo amazed the audience with a string of magic tricks sprinkled with humor and wisdom. A former math teacher, he incorporated our organization’s mission into his show. For the finale, Hondo extracted a piece of a playing card torn earlier by an audience member that somehow ended up in a popcorn package sealed bowl and stuffed in a backpack beneath his magician’s table. The crowd loved it.
Fundraising helped Foundation 191 award 11 grants for the 2011-2012 school year totaling over $10,000. The grants are awarded to projects submitted by teachers and staff in ISD 191 in an open application process. This year there were 27 applications seeking over $90,000. The need is great and the proposals were creative and innovative.
This year’s grants included the First Robotics team at Burnsville High School (BHS). Students design and build a robot for competition against other schools. The team demonstrated the robot at the Fun-Raiser.
Other grants included the Maud Hart Lovelace book awards at Rahn Elementary School, Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies (PBIS) at Nicollet Junior High, Reader’s Theater at Edward Neill Elementary, History Day Club at Nicollet Junior High, Calculator Lending Library at BHS, Parent Involvement Project at Sioux Trail Elementary, English as a Second Language Co-Teaching in second grade at Edward Neill Elementary, The Edge Summer Program at M.W. Savage Elementary, Empty Bowls for Full Bellies at BHS and the BHS Bridge Program. It is estimated over 2,000 students will have the opportunity to participate.
The Calculator Lending Library grant facilitated purchase of graphing calculators at BHS that can be checked out like library books by students unable to afford them. Empty Bowls for Full Bellies lets BHS students make ceramic bowls and serve bread and soup to raise funds for Brain Power in a Back Pack. This project sends backpacks filled with food home with hungry kids. PBIS is a school-wide program to promote and reinforce positive behavior among junior high students. The ESL co-teaching project places an ESL teacher in a second-grade class to help English Language Learners. Reader’s Theater promotes fluency and engagement by students performing by oral reading. The Maud Hart Lovelace awards lets students vote for the winners from a series of fiction books they read. The Parent Involvement Reading Project enhances parent involvement in reading for struggling readers. The BHS Bridge Program helps at-risk junior high students transition into high school. History Day Club is an enrichment program for students to research and create history projects suitable for competition. The Edge provides social and recreational activity while teaching responsibility.
New and innovative projects are important for expanding and enhancing educational opportunities for students. The time spent by kids in school is priceless. Exposure to new ideas, opportunities and experiences will prepare them for life afterwards. Funding the grants and programs is a direct investment in education and youth in our own community.
Funding projects in the schools takes money. Foundation 191 receives funds from event proceeds like the Fun-Raiser, donations from individuals and corporations, stock donations, United Way, restricted donations and memorials, to name a few.
We co-sponsor the Dan Patch Days run and hold an annual golf tournament in September. We are comprised entirely of volunteers and raising funds is a challenge in a struggling economy. Our Web site is www.foundation191.org.
Success can be measured by the number of grant applications and number of students who benefit from projects. Ultimately, the true measure of success is helping young people in our community to be inquisitive, creative and productive members of society. Today’s students are tomorrow’s future. We can build a better community by investing in their education today.
(Steve Fiebiger is one of several people in the Savage community who write for Community Voices – a column appearing weekly in the opinion and commentary section of this newspaper.)
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