Summerfest 2013! Volunteers were everywhere! We were getting school supplies in the hands of children. We were setting a positive tone to the start of school for Anderson Community Schools in Anderson, Indiana. This project helped the children start their school year off great. It was a “Welcome Back to School” in a carnival-like setting, with kids earning free school supplies as prizes.

It takes a lot of volunteers, a lot of school supplies and a lot of hours to get a project this large up and running. It’s all about the kids and their needs.

Valley Grove

Mrs. Griner’s 1st Grade

Class says, “Thanks!”

Ms. Koeniger, Principal

Anderson University Students are hard at work for our students.

Th

an

k yo

u

AU

!

The AU student volunteers painted the soccer goals, fixed nets, washed windows, painted lines on the playground and planted 60 plants (that were donated) in the butterfly garden on one of the hottest days of the year September 2013.

A special young friend, Kellsea, learned about volunteering and volunteered herself….later..

STRAWBERRY PATCH WILL BE

HERE

BLUEBERRY BUSHES

STARTED HERE

A LOT OF WORK TO BE DONE….. HERE

Nicholas Carlson, age 13, volunteered along with his aunt ~ He cleared planting areas (hand shoveled). He helped plant 17 blueberry bushes for the Southview Preschool Center and for the benefit of 274 preschool students. Nicholas is a football player for another school corporation, but was willing to work for 7 hours this Saturday morning in October 2013 and afternoon. He looks forward to returning to complete the project in the spring along with Master Gardeners that will be coming too. With your help and the Anderson Education Foundations help, we will finish this very worthy project.

IMAGINATION!AT WORK…

We had private donors, Anderson Education

Foundation grant and Women of Trinity grant to

help get this project started. A lot of labor

hours were volunteered.

6- Year old, Kellsea donating her fall break to help create garden for 274 preschool kids.

Nevaeh’s Garden at Southview

Preschool Center

Building character, confidence, getting fit and learning about life-science at the same time.

“Babies, Butterflies and Berries Garden”

We will have some vegetables too!

We hope the Anderson Education Foundation can help finish this project and provide Kellsea’s classroom and school with a few Smartboards and IPADS to study garden grow remotely. Kellsea goes to anther school, but volunteered about 16 hours in October 2013.

She has about 16 hours in this garden project.

Teach them while they are young to work together to create great things. Kindness, hard work mixed with a lot of fun will help these children grow up strong and well educated.

ACS and Anderson University team up

to build a strong

community!

Southview Preschool

Mrs. Wagner, Principal

Anderson Education Foundation helped fund this garden project along with

other donors and volunteers.

Laura Finch Baker was part of a project called “Cans for Communcation”. ~ copy of Laura’s email ~ Thanks to the many staff and students who are saving aluminum cans for us COMBINED with the generosity of strangers (Jason Sheilds collected $$$ using Facebook), We are READY to purchase our first iPAD for the students in the severe disabilities classes!!  We have raised $200 with can recycling since September, and Jason collected over $300 in donations.  I am hoping to have an iPad in each of the three classrooms before the end of the year! There are other ACS groups needing the iPADs too that the AEF would support if they had the funding.

Another project supported by multiple volunteers, private donors, ACS donors and AEF grants in past years.

We have some wonderful people doing great things for kids! Please nominate the AEF foundation to do more for kids.

• Anderson Education Foundation (AEF) located at 1600 Hillcrest Avenue, Anderson, IN 46011 765.640.4303 visit them at aef@acsc.net

• The AEF would use extra funding to assist approximately 7,000 students and their teachers located within the Anderson Community Schools Corporation. The AEF would make great use of any funding they were awarded for learning projects for children. The ACS fee assistance rate is approximately 74%.

• The AEF would finish the interactive Babies, Butterflies and Berries walking garden at Southview preschool for the 274 preschool children with an extra $7,200 and Valley Grove. Included in this part of the funding would be a book for each child at Southview Preschool.

• The AEF would purchase at least 50 IPADS @ $400 each for a total of $20,000 for speech teachers and some of the intense interventions teachers for special needs students needing additional assistance.

• The AEF would purchase at least 8 smartboards, carts with projectors @ estimated $7,200 for approximately $57,600. Dream big! That would provide 2 for the preschool center, 2 for the kindergarten center and 4 for Valley Grove Elementary where a very special garden volunteer came from. (A few of the teachers had Smartboards at other buildings and would love to have Smartboards where they are teaching now to assist their students. (They have the training, but need the equipment.)

• The AEF could use an extra $10,000 for grants awarded to teachers based upon application process for the 2014 – 2015 school year.

• The AEF could use an extra $5,000 for the Summerfest 2014 carnival school supplies for kids project. It would be a great start to a new school year!

Other organizations that help ACS and their families that could use your support and would use funds wisely.

Mounds Baptist Church located at 3001 Mounds Road in Anderson, IN 46016. They were tireless in volunteering/coordinating the Summer Fest 2013 for our kids and a mentoring/tutoring program for the kids. We volunteered a lot of time on this project too. They could use $7,000 for these projects. If selected, please send check to the attention of Pastor Steve Wilkinson.

St. Vincent Anderson Regional Hospital Foundation’s Equine Therapy Fund could use $3,000 to $5,000 to continue helping our kids with horse therapy. They are located at 625 Main Street Anderson, IN 46016. If selected, please send check to the attention of C. Lanane.

The Christian Center located at 625 Main Street in Anderson, IN 46016 is an organization who helps the local hungry. A phone call came from Christy who volunteers. She indicated the need for spoons and condiments. They ran out of spoons on a soup night. A group of us came together and provided the needed supplies to get them through another weekend. The need is ever increasing. The Christian Center would put $7,000 - $10,000 to great use for the community of Anderson.

We are building community one project at a time with countless volunteer hours, private donations, grants from the Anderson Education Foundation and other groups. We hope to keep the momentum going and growing here in Anderson, IN with Anderson Community Schools. We would appreciate your support!