Letter: South Whidbey Schools Foundation has matching grant opportunity

Letter to the Editor

Editor,

The South Whidbey Schools Foundation is gearing up to support local South Whidbey students and staff as they start the new school year remotely. Our schools hope to be in a hybrid model later this fall, with the ultimate goal of being back in the classroom as soon as it is safe to do so.

The foundation is assisting teachers and staff as best we can in these unusual times. We thought we had dodged a bullet when we held a fundraiser dinner at Gordon’s in March, but unfortunately we likely will never receive the $7,000 raised because the online ticket vendor, Brown Paper Tickets, was hit hard by COVID-19 and has not been able to pay many of their clients.

But an exciting prospect is a matching grant opportunity we have been offered from Whidbey Community Foundation. If we can raise $5,000, they will grant us $5,000.

Some programs that we are looking forward to funding include the popular Globals Cultures Experiences in connection with the Northwest Language Cultural Center, as well as continuing to add new and relevant book titles to the K-12 library system.

One grant we just partially funded is for Native American books and maps to be available to check out by students even while learning remotely. We would so like to do more. Another show of support we have already approved is renewing for a second year donations to each building principal, ranging from $1,000 to $5,000, to be used at their discretion as needs arise and creative ideas are generated by their teams.

Would you be able to help us take advantage of this generous matching grant? We would love to have this additional $10,000 for our schools.

Please visit our website to donate online, or you may also mail in a check to P.O. Box 24 Freeland, WA 98249. Any amount helps.

This is a wonderful opportunity that we don’t want to miss out on and the deadline is approaching.

Shelly Ackerman,

President

South Whidbey Schools Foundation