[Noozhawk’s note: Second in a series. Click here for the first article, and click here for the third.]
The Teacher’s Fund was launched in 2002 with the goal of channeling donated money directly into classrooms on Santa Barbara County’s South Coast, to help teachers do a better job.
Ed Edick, one of the organization’s founders, remembers some of the revelations he got from reading the first few rounds of teachers’ grant applications.
“Some of the requests are tear-jerking,” he told Noozhawk. “Some of them are so minimal … I need $117 to buy pencils and paper.”
As he reviewed the applications with other committee members, and saw how often teachers had to buy their own supplies in the absence of help from sources like the Teacher’s Fund, he felt a growing discomfort.
“This is ridiculous,” he remembers blurting out. “They should never let anyone become a teacher that doesn’t have a trust fund. We give them so much responsibility, we ask them to work so hard … there are no rich school teachers.”
In that spirit, the Teacher’s Fund has contributed more than $1.3 million to local classrooms over the past 13 years. With a simple online application form available to all teachers in South Coast public and private schools, a committee of volunteers meets monthly to decide which requests will be funded.
Just as students grow and mature, however, so do organizations. The Teacher’s Fund may not be an awkward teenager, but after 13 years it finds itself in a state of transition.
“We would just like it to grow,” said Reneé Grubb, the fund’s other founder and Edick’s business partner in the Village Properties real estate company.
To that end, what had been called the Village Properties Teacher’s Fund is now just the Teacher’s Fund. While the registered nonprofit fund has always been separate from the real estate firm, Grubb realizes the reluctance of some people to donate to a 501(c)3 that seems so closely connected to a for-profit business.
Village Properties will continue to pay all of the fund’s operating expenses so that 100 percent of every donation ends up in the classroom, she noted.
To propel the transition, Grubb and Edick have hired consultant Lisa Rivas to review and revise the fund’s bylaws and board structure, and propose other changes in governance that might smooth the way for more individuals, businesses and foundations to contribute.
One of the fund’s biggest desires is to expand beyond the South Coast to help teachers throughout the county, in all grades. At present, the fund takes applications only from the South Coast and the Santa Ynez Valley.
“We want a board that’s representative of the county,” for example, said Rivas, who also is exploring ways that the Teacher’s Fund “can be better at collaborating.”
With better coordination between the Teacher’s Fund and other organizations, for instance, the fund could help many businesses that are looking for a way to help the community.
“If your giving priorities are aligned (with education), here’s a way that’s in place already,” Rivas said. “We could serve this whole county.”
For several years the Teacher’s Fund did serve the entire county, while it had a multiyear grant from the Orfalea Foundation. However, when that grant expired, the fund had to pull back.
Teachers who have received grants from the fund are effusive in their gratitude.
Barry Nitikman, a fifth-grade GATE teacher at Washington School on the Mesa, has received multiple grants since 2007.
“Even with something as basic as getting supplies, the fact that I’m not having to scrounge for things I need — paper, pencils, thumbtacks, paper clips, etc. — means I can just teach at my best, avoid frustrations for both myself and my students, and not make any compromises such as, ‘Well, the most impactful way to do this with the kids would be XYZ, but we can’t afford it, so we’ll have to settle for this second-rate method,’” he said.
Sometimes a grant is for $200 to $300 “to buy needed supplies or special art materials or books,” Nitikman said.
The Teacher’s Fund “has also provided me with grants of $500 to $600 to purchase things like a projector and a magnetic dry-erase board, as well as help with publishing our class novel.”
Nitikman called the impact of the funding “incalculable.”
“The dry-erase board is used every single day,” he continued. “Years ago when I got the projector, it enhanced everything I did. The thrill of publishing the (students’) novel is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for them.”
And the impact goes beyond a single teacher or group of students, noted Tricia Price, principal-superintendent at Cold Spring School in Montecito and a member of the grant committee.
“The item that is given stays at the school and benefits students year after year, including books,” she said. “I think that’s one of our favorite things to fund.”
Laura Denny, an art teacher at Adelante and Santa Barbara charter schools, has also received multiple grants over the years, and she estimates that the support has reached more than 10,000 students.
“I know that the Teacher’s Fund has kept my arts program alive,” she said.
“We all know there’s a huge difference between fast food and fine dining,” Denny said. “I present art materials like a beautiful buffet so that when my students enter the classroom they are excited to engage in the projects I have to teach.”
Keeping art education alive is a constant struggle but a vital one, she added.
“The arts play a critical role in learning creative problem-solving,” Denny explained. “Art, specifically, has the power to help students make connections … The more opportunities students have to deeply connect with each other and the environment, the more likely they are to act with care and respect.”
A visible symbol of the Teacher’s Fund’s efforts to broaden and deepen its impact is its annual fall golf tournament, which took place Oct. 2 for the fifth year.
The tournament received major support from Cox Media, Prospect Mortgage, Union Bank, Montecito Bank & Trust and the Santa Barbara Foundation, as well as from MarBorg Industries, Movegreen, Heritage Oaks Bank, Haaland Diving Inc., Chicago and Fidelity title companies, and WFG National Title Co.
Village Properties also collaborates with the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (formerly the Contemporary Arts Forum) by selling tickets to the museum’s “Dream Home Raffle.” For every $150 ticket sold through Village Properties, the Teacher’s Fund receives $50.
After their years of emotional and financial investment in the Village Properties Teacher’s Fund, Grubb and Edick find themselves in a position somewhat like that of a parent “letting go” of a growing child as they drop their company’s name from the nonprofit Teacher’s Fund.
“We’re really grateful that it’s given us the recognition, that we’re a company that gives back to the community,” Grubb said. “But now the purpose is for going forward.”
Click here for more information about The Teacher’s Fund, or call 805.637.6816. Click here to make an online donation.
— Noozhawk contributing writer Dave Bemis can be reached at dbemis@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.