The Eudora Schools Foundation celebrated its 15-year-anniversary at the high school girls basketball game Tuesday with a birthday cake and card.
The Eudora Schools Foundation has raised over $500,000 over the past 15 years that has been put to use enriching the educational experience for local students and teachers.
The foundation started its journey as a nonprofit in 2007 and has since awarded 148 grants to K-12 teachers in the district to use in their classes, including Eudora Middle School English/Language Arts instructor Amy Giffin.
“We really were wanting to find a way to foster a love of reading, and our end goal was to get sixth graders to have really good authentic discussions,” Giffin said.
Giffin is using the grant she received to purchase new books for her sixth graders in hopes of creating a book club discussion group that is planned to start after spring break. She said the Eudora Schools Foundation’s contributions to the district have been huge over the years.
“It has evolved and grown and changed, and the impacts that it makes continue to be different,” Giffin said. “They seem like they’re always looking for different avenues and ways to try to meet different needs in the community.”
The foundation’s executive director Shanda Hurla said a few community members volunteered to start the foundation with the mission of providing new opportunities in the classroom, rewarding teacher excellence and making their schools the best they can be.
Fifteen years later, the foundation has done just that by contributing grants that have gone toward things like new electronic scales for science classes, college and career readiness programs and The Bird’s Nest, which donates clothing to community members in need.
Hurla said a major mission of the Eudora Schools Foundation is to ensure teachers are rewarded for all their hard work.
“I think it is so important to be able to retain staff and to help them to be able to do their jobs well, because then that obviously flows straight back to our schools and students, which is why we’re here,” Hurla said.
Eudora kindergarten teacher Paige Hayden is using the grant she received from the foundation to give students opportunities to learn how to code.
“We use robots and different engineering tools, and the kids are scientists for the day,” Hayden said.
The kindergarteners take two days out of their week called “STEM days” where they use these robots and engineering tools to explore coding and other subjects in STEM.
Hayden said without the grant, her students would not be as prepared for the job market that will exist when they graduate high school.
“Our kids are living in a very 21st century world. When they finish school and they’re looking for a job, a majority of their jobs are going to be in the tech industry,” Hayden said. “By getting coding into their hands this early, it’s setting them up for success in the future.”
Hayden said the foundation always delivers on its promise to meet the needs requested from teachers, students and staff in the district – even creating the Cardinals Care Fund to assist families in the district with financial needs such as rent/mortgage assistance.
“I’ve gotten to see the school foundation in action throughout my four years here. They’re so involved in the district and make such a huge impact, not only with teachers, but with students and our community as a whole,” she said.
Hurla said the Eudora Schools Foundation differs from some of the other similar foundations at larger school districts, because Eudora’s smaller community makes it possible to emphasize the importance of education and get directly involved in its improvement.
“I think since the schools have been so successful and the community believes in what’s happening in our schools, I think there is an awareness,” she said. “Parents feel like they’re a part of the decision-making in the schools, so I think that helps.”
Giffin said being able to recognize and form relationships with foundation board members has been instrumental in the trust and collaboration they have built within Eudora.
“There’s more buy-in when you have personal relationships with them,” she said. “When people can see the impacts that are being made, they are more likely to give.”
The Eudora Schools Foundation’s first fundraising event was a golf tournament that hosted local vendors and raised enough money to get classroom grants up and running within two years.
Now, they aim to raise $50,000 during their 24-hour fundraiser called ESF Give Day happening Tuesday, Hurla said.
“Last year, we set the goal at $15,000. We felt that would be something that would be obtainable,” she said. “At the end of the day, we received over $43,000 in 24 hours.”
As the foundation sets its goal higher this year after celebrating its 15-year anniversary, Hurla said she hopes the funds raised will continue to push the foundation forward into the future in bigger and better directions.
“I think that it’s achievable. We have some really amazing things that we are wanting to do in the next couple years with the foundation, so we are hoping to make that happen,” she said.
To get involved in ESF Give Day, visit the foundation’s website: https://www.eudoraschoolsfoundation.org/esf-give-day/.
Reach reporter Alyssa Wingo at [email protected].
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