PORT TOWNSEND — A format change for the Port Townsend Education Foundation’s annual fundraising event succeeded beyond its expectations, organizers say.
“It was a huge success,” said Caitlin Harrison, the organization’s board chair.
“We took a big risk this year due to a lack of volunteers, so we had an idea what to expect and anticipated getting quite a bit less, so we put some money in reserves.”
The event, held Saturday night at Fort Worden Commons, drew 217 people and raised a gross amount of $63,500 for use to support educational programs in the Port Townsend School District.
The amount raised was $4,000 less than last year’s total, Harrison said.
After expenses, Harrison estimated the event raised the foundation a net amount of around $50,000 for programs.
Auction items
In past years, the foundation has raised money through an art auction but didn’t get enough participating artists this year and decided to follow a music theme and offer “more experiential” items.
The big items included a weekend package in Portland, Ore., that included tickets to the “Live Wire Radio” show hosted by Luke Burbank for $1,200; a wooden skiff handcrafted by Blue Heron seventh-grade students in the Maritime Discovery School program for $1,200; Elvis Costello tickets bundled with hotel and restaurant fees in Seattle for $1,400; and a handmade acoustic guitar and stand for $1,700.
The foundation, now in its seventh year, offers grants to teachers within the district for programs the district doesn’t support.
It has raised nearly $300,000 in support of projects such as providing iPads to math classes and purchasing equipment for the high school robotics program.
This year, the foundation received 23 grant requests and approved 18 for academic programs, Harrison said.
“It’s very specific,” she said. “It has to support academic achievement.
“We will work directly with a teacher on common core standards, but when people want to go to Ashland [Ore.] to perform music, that’s for the boosters.”
Writers in schools
The foundation funded the Writers in the Schools Program where one student, Blue Heron fifth-grader Oscar Levine, won a creative writing competition and was invited to read the story at a function at the Seattle Public Library.
Levine read the story, “The Metropolitan Stray,” which told of a stray dog in New York City from the dog’s point of view.
The dog looks into a puddle where “the reflection that was looking back was a golden coat filled with a mixture of grime and dirt, eyes covered in sorrow and paws worn down by the gruesome paved streets of NYC.”
In the story, the dog discovers a lost watch and brings it to the person who lost it, a delicatessen owner, and finds a home.
“We can expose our kids to these cool, innovative place-based learning initiatives with money that the district just doesn’t have,” Harrison said.
While the foundation strives to fund “cool and innovative” programs, it sometimes subsidizes necessary testing programs for which the funds aren’t available.
Many options
Harrison said the foundation expected to raise only about $30,000 but feels it succeeded because there were so many different options.
“There was a diversity of ways to give,” she said.
“If you only had $10, you could play [the coin-tossing practice] heads or tails, or you could spend $50 for a chance on a bottle of wine.”
A raffle of a contributed pot of about $900 was won by Port Townsend School Board Chairwoman Holley Carlson, who immediately contributed it back to the foundation.
Harrison said Saturday’s event was the foundation’s main fundraiser but that contributions are accepted year-round through its website.
For more information, go to www.pteducationfoundation.org.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
