The Edmeston Education Foundation, Inc.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Edmeston Education Foundation to everyone within our reach!

I am pleased to announce that The Edmeston Education Foundation, Inc. has received a gift from the C. J. Heilig Foundation, Inc. of Cooperstown, NY in the amount of $15,000.00. The gift was unsolicited and was the result of a phone call fielded by Alicia Bowen, ECS Business Manager, and passed on to us. Thank you, Alicia! The Heilig Foundation is a private family foundation which has the support of education as one of its prime areas of focus. I believe that our foundation ...will have a wonderful ongoing relationship with the Heilig Foundation, and that ECS students, teachers, and staff will benefit from that relationship long into the future. We have not wanted our foundation to compete with the efforts of the Edmeston Town Pool Fundraising Committee to raise funds for the revitalization of our community pool. This group of civic minded people have worked tirelessly, and they have secured nearly $400,000.00 of the estimated cost of $620,000.00 for the new pool and its associated improvements. They continue to pursue all areas of possible funding, have a lot of irons in the fire, and are confident that they will meet their goal. With the pool fundraising committee having had such great success, I feel that our foundation can now resume our fundraising efforts with a vengeance. Our goal is to create an ever-growing fund to supplement our school district's budget, to make grants to provide learning opportunities for our kids that would not otherwise be possible, and to let creativity, innovation, self-directed learning, and fun run wild in the halls of ECS. Our Board of Directors will be meeting soon to develop guidelines for our grants and to create a long-term fundraising plan. I find that this is an exciting time to live in the Edmeston/Burlington area. Change and progress are breaking out all over. To paraphrase Mahatma Ghandi slightly, "We must be the change that we want to see." I invite and encourage you to dip your toes into the pool of volunteerism in your community, wherever it is. If you feel that you have nothing to add, you are absolutely wrong. Time, money, skills, and heart are commodities that all of us have and that all of us must share with others to live a satisfying life. Stay tuned!

We are pleased to announce that the Edmeston Rotary Club has become a "Founding Donor" with a generous gift of $1,000.00 to the Foundation! We send out a big thank you to the club's members for their support.

I think that it is important that we recognize those who help us lay the groundwork for future growth. All donors who make a contribution of any size to the Foundation before July 1, 2016 will be identified as "Founding Donors" on our Facebook page, in our promotional materials, and at an end-of-year celebratory event. If for some reason you wish to make your donation anonymous, just let us know and we will honor your request. Is there a teacher, a staff member, or a cla...ssmate or older student who had a significant impact on your life or those of your children? Why not make a gift to the Foundation in his or her honor or memory to recognize that fact and to create new opportunities for that impact to be felt by current and future members of the ECS family? If you have a comment or story about that person's impact, please share it with us. With your permission, we will share it with others. See more

The Foundation is now properly registered with the New York State Department of Law - Charities Registration Bureau, and we can begin fundraising in earnest. We have spent time making sure that our financial infrastructure is in place. We have opened a Bank account with NBT Bank, contracted with a payment processor so that we can accept credit cards, added a "Donate Button" to our Facebook page, enrolled in the Amazon Smile Donation Program, and submitted an article about the... Foundation for inclusion in the ECS summer newsletter. If you want to support the Foundation with a donation, and if you would like to help us avoid any processing fees that would be deducted from your gift, please send a check payable to The Edmeston Education Foundation, Inc. to the Foundation at P.O. Box 5129, Edmeston, NY 13335, or drop your contribution off at the security booth or the main office of the school. And so we begin... See more