Jim Beddow, Senior Consultant of the Rural Learning Center, speaks with Ozarks Teacher Corps students during a small group session.
Picture-perfect spring weather greeted nearly 150 Ozarks educators, students, and community leaders from the Community Foundation of the Ozarks’ Rural Schools Partnership. The day was kicked off by welcomes from CFO chairman David Pointer of Gainesville and fellow board member Dusty Shaw of Thomasville, who hosted the event. Brian Fogle, CFO president, talked about the impact of planned giving, and CFO president emeritus Gary Funk highlighted the growth of the Rural School Partnership.
The day then featured a series of presentations and workshops facilitated by Margaret MacLean, Jereann King Johnson, and Robert Mahaffey of The Rural School and Community Trust; Jim Beddow, Randy Parry, and Mike Knutson of the Rural Learning Center (South Dakota); Lavina Grandon of the Rural Community Alliance (Arkansas), and CFO’s own Carol Silvey, who led a lively discussion on building school foundations.
In addition, new Ozarks Teacher Corps members were introduced CFO’s Dr. Julie Leeth, and the 2011 Coover Place-Based Grant recipients were honored at the Rendezvous picnic under a big tent. Stay tuned in the weeks ahead for several features and highlights related to Thomasville.
Below are summaries of this year’s Coover Place-Based recipients.
Leeton R-X: $20,000 (Marijayne Manley and Bonnie Seymour)
School Based Enterprise Bulldog Express: Expanding the program that includes a renovation of the building ultimately adding a coffee shop/deli. This will allow more students to enroll in the program and more exposure to various business experiences.
Chadwick: $19,989 (Dr. Bill Wheeler)
Ozark Mountain Herbs: To study the history and utilization of herbs in the Ozark Mountains. Students will research the use of herbs by Chadwick settlers. Project includes construction of an outdoor classroom. Elementary classes will have their own individual garden space.
Sherwood-Cass YEP: $20,000 (Dr. Jerrod H. Wheeler and Brian Hymes)
The “Sherwood Forest”: Produce a campus Master Treescape and Beautification Plan and enhance the carbon credit awareness and green operational strategy capacities of the students and community.
Fairview – $19,534 (Regina Kissinger)
“Water Awareness Project”: Train middle-school students in the area of freshwater quality in their community and also collaborating with lower-elementary teachers to become mentors to the students in those classrooms. The project will culminate a community-wide “Fresh Water Awareness Festival.”
Stockton: $16,700 (Elaina Daniels)
“Tiger Community Pride”: To design, bid, and build an outdoor area complete with a pavilion, and a vegetable/flower garden. Research the various types of Missouri wildflowers and their benefits.
St. James YEP – $20,000 (Ramona Rinehart and Terrill Story)
St. James Y.E.P Firehouse Coffee: To renovate a 2,500-square-foot old firehouse for a student community engagement center, and also host YEP summer concerts that will generate revenue for the YEP fund.
Glenwood: $4,600 (Juliet Cobb)
“Grow Our Strengths”: Students will build raised beds, composting school kitchen waste, planting seeds, working and harvesting the garden, consuming the bounty, and donating surplus to needy families in our community. The middle-school students would use their mathematics skills to design and construct the garden beds.
Dora: $20,000 (Zak Hamby)
“Dora Digital Story Telling”: Students will complete a “digital story” based on a community inquiry project that analyzes an aspect of the Ozarks.
