Natasha Schaefer, Kris Thompson, Melanie Tauring spoke to the club, telling us that the Forward Education Foundation supports the River Falls School District with grants to supplement District resources. FEF is an all-volunteer organization that raises funds to award cash grants. They focus on grants to enhance creative learning initiatives to engage, challenge, and inspire students.
FEF’s goal is to provide $20,000 annually in grants to educators and staff in RFSD. The foundation has about 12 board members with different levels of involvement and different skill sets and strengths that they bring. The FEF started in 2011, supported by St Croix Valley Foundation until FEF got its own 501c3.l The FEF awarded $26,500 in its first 2 years. Click READ MORE to read the rest of the summary and to read about the presenters.
The board speakers describe the process, which begins when grant applications open in the spring. The FEF emails teachers, paraprofessionals, and administrators, inviting them to apply for grants of up to $4000. Every submission is evaluated, with set criteria, by the FEF board. Grants must be sustainable, and the organization favors ideas that cross classes and disciplines. The expectation is for the grant to be implemented in one year. Natasha noted that the FEF-granted items will never be in the RFSD budget. Total grants since the organization’s founding total more than $275,000.
Kris showed physical examples of products students have created using grant funds and how the grants provided opportunities for micro businesses and innovations such as creative uses of tablets for artistic students. He showed slides of Westside Elementary students walking in the snow using purchased snowshoes, and an activity mat to enhance 4k students physical and behavioral self-regulation.
The talk wrapped up with a summary of the ways FEF engages with the community: a booth at Earth Fest, River Falls Days, Taste of River Falls. MMS and RFHS events, the Johnnie’s Bar Raffle, Holiday Mailers, Direct Donations, and of course word of mouth. Connecting with grant winners in community provides more opportunity to tell FEF’s story.
About the Speakers: The presentation was shared among three FEF board members: Kris Thompson, an instructor at CVTC who has two children in the RFSD; Melanie Tauring, a retired marketer who is now a health and wellness coach and a passionate community member; and Natasha Schaefer, a mental health care coordinator, a member of the RFHS class of 2002, and mother of two children in the RFSD.