School group to launch new fund campaign

There's a 4-foot-long blank check propped up above Angie Bender's desk at the Cape Girardeau School Board office. There's no name on the "pay to the order of" line, no amount written in the dollar box. Yet.

In four months, Bender will begin filling in names and amounts and traveling to classrooms in the Cape Girardeau School District to present the check to teachers.

But first, Bender and the rest of the Cape Public Schools Foundation will launch a new fund-raising campaign as part of a revamp of the 8-year-old philanthropic organization.

Bender herself was part of the initial revamp. In June, she became the foundation's first paid director. Now the organization is changing the way it collects and distributes funds.

"The foundation has raised significant money in the past for specific projects," said Bender. "We've had a really strong, dedicated volunteer base, but what we need is a very specific plan to take us to the place we want to be."

And where is that exactly? Raising between $100,000 and $250,000 a year and then handing it out to teachers as grants to use in their classrooms.

"We're hoping to really have a larger impact," said Stacy Kinder, vice president of the foundation. "We want to be more proactive. We really want to fcous on whatever we can do for teachers, especially given the past year or two with the budget problems."

The foundation is doing that with the help of Dr. Pete Karabatsos, a Colorado consultant who specializes in fund raising for school foundations. Karabatsos currently works with around 100 foundations throughout the United States. The new fund-raising campaign will begin with a founders drive in December.

"Sometimes thinking about what we hope to accomplish is a little daunting," Kinder said. "But we're really excited about it."

The campaign will be a one-time appeal to district patrons and businesses to make a donation of at least $250 to form the base to support the foundation's new plan for donating to schools.

Those who do will receive a lifelong founder designation and their names go on plaques that will hang in the schools. The founder drive will run through February. During that month, the foundation will hand out this year's first large allotment -- approximately $30,000 to teachers based on grants they write for specific classroom projects.

"We're going to have a prize patrol with balloons, music and the check. We'll go around to classrooms and surprise the teachers who are receiving money," Bender said.

She said she hopes to distribute $30,000 twice each school year based on the grants written by teachers. The grants will fund teacher-initiated projects and reward academic excellence. The foundation's board of directors will decide which teachers receive the money based on set guidelines.

"It will help with those needs that tax dollars and the state are not able to meet," Bender said. "We want teachers to know they have a resource to go to throughout the year."

The foundation is also in the process of the recruiting more board members. There are currently 14, but Bender said they hope to have between 25 and 30 eventually. For more information about the foundation, call Bender at 651-0555.

cclark@semissourian.com

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