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August 2023 News Brief
Annual Meeting & Grantee Celebration
Grantee class of 2023
Dear WRWF members:
We are thrilled to report that on Aug. 2, 150 members and guests came out to attend our 2023 Annual Meeting & Celebration of Grantees, held in beautiful Elkhorn!
The event unfolded on a blustery afternoon at the home of one of our board members, who generously shared her backyard to accommodate the festivities.
The sound of laughter and aspen leaves rustling in the breeze created a lively atmosphere perfect for mingling and making new connections. Especially fantastic was the strong turnout from our inspiring Grantee representatives. It is our sincere hope that everyone took the opportunity to gather, have a chat with someone new, and celebrate a successful end to the grant season.
Our dynamic WRWF President, Sandy McCullough, kicked off programming with a community update (you can read more about her remarks here in the President’s Message). This was followed by a speech from Grantee Engagement lead Sally Halstead, who recognized each of our 2023 Grantees by name and honored each nonprofit for the role they’ve played in our community. Gail Landis stepped in to share the official voting results, and then we welcomed Sarah Sentilles—acclaimed author, and co-founder of The Alliance—as our keynote speaker.
What a spectacular 2023 Annual Meeting & Grantee Celebration - a huge thank you to the dozens of volunteers who made it happen! This member-favorite event marks my one year anniversary of serving the Foundation as President, a job that has been both a privilege and an adventure. There are three critical facts that are always at the forefront of what I know to be true about WRWF:
Generous members. We could not deliver our grant making mission without the philanthropic commitment of our members. It is your contributions to our pooled fund that enable WRWF to provide robust support across Blaine County. Every member matters, and whether this is your 19th year of participation or your very first, I thank you for showing up to fund our grants!
2. Deserving nonprofits. Our nonprofit partners are doing the work of heroes and heroines - the more support we can send their way, the more effectively they can deliver their services to the community. As you renew your membership this year, please bear in mind that you can always give more to the pooled fund than the minimum contribution of $1,000 ($500 for our Future Forward members). WRWF typically receives grant requests that are more than double the size of our available pool. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if we could fund more of those requests?!
WRWF is thrilled that our grantee I Have a Dream Foundation has rebranded to now serve Blaine County as Far + Wise!
Below is the announcement shared on farandwise.org website:
Thanks to our extraordinary community support, we are growing and expanding our work as a stand-alone nonprofit. You may have known us as the Idaho “I Have a Dream” Foundation—we have evolved to become Far + Wise.
Our core mission remains the same — to provide individualized, academic support, life-skills learning, and enrichment programming to under-resourced youth from early elementary school through high school and post-secondary education, along with guaranteed tuition support.
Together we will now go further and deeper into empowering students through expanded programs and services – providing even more tools, opportunities, skills and personal development resources for youth of Blaine County.
“This is much more than a name change,” said Ken Lewis, who founded I Have a Dream Foundation-Idaho. “This is about becoming independent from the national organization. Our director, Laura Rose-Lewis, has taken the program far beyond any I Have a Dream program I’ve heard of, creating trade camps for the students and taking part in SummerBridge.”
Congratulations from all of us at WRWF!
Far + Wise Training Program ~
Students got hands-on experience inside the cockpit of an airplane during a Trade and Vocational Training Initiative program at Friedman Memorial Airport.
At the end of June, some students got hands-on experience inside the cockpit of an airplane, taking off from Friedman Memorial Airport. The flight was part of a new Trade and Vocational Training Initiative geared toward exposing students to occupations in need of workers.
Laura Rose-Lewis, Executive Director of Far + Wise, formally known as I Have a Dream Foundation (IHADF) shared, “Some of our graduates, about 12 of them from last year, would have preferred to go to trade school. This gave me the idea that we need to have programs here so they can gain skills and bring them to local businesses.”
She continued, “We will work with a group of interested community members and partners to design and develop this initiative which may include a combination of online and on-site instruction, apprenticeships, and a range of classes and camps.”
The need for affordable and high-quality early childhood education options in the Wood River Valley isn’t critical just for working parents or rapidly-developing young brains; it is a requisite for the entire community’s economic and societal health, according to local and national experts.
“The brain networks and language networks are being developed rapidly hour by hour, day by day, before the age of 3,” said Louisa Moats, a nationally recognized expert on child literacy and member of the Wood River Women’s Foundation.
From age zero to 3, more than 1 million new neural connections form every second, said Kathryn Ivers, project director of the recently-formed Wood River Early Learning Collaborative. “When those connections are strengthened with positive experiences, then that sets a child up for success. . . each child has so much potential, but the window to give that child the foundation for success is very short.”
When the Wood River Women’s Foundation decided to choose “closing the opportunity gap in education” as the goal of its first-ever multi-year (2022 and 2023) focus grant, it selected the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children (AEYC) as the recipient. In turn, the Idaho AEYC was able to launch the Wood River Early Learning Collaborative.
For every family, for every kid, “early childhood education” can be successfully achieved in very different forms, whether by a parent who can stay at home to care for children, smaller informal care arrangements, or larger preschools.
“What I hope happens is for support to come from somewhere to subsidize the cost,” Moats said. “Because in the long run it’s much less expensive to do that than all the compensatory remediation.”
Retrieved from Idaho Mountain Express Read the 3 part series about the WRELC Strategic Plan: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Upcoming Events
2nd Annual Nine & Wine Plus M&M Friendraiser
Golfers: Grab your sticks and come play in our 2nd Annual WRWF Nine & Wine!
The WRWF is a dedicated team working hard everyday to deliver on our philanthropic missions and support our community partners. And, in our Wood River Valley paradise, we also play hard! Please join us for some end-of-the-season fun!
Date/Time: 9/6 3:00 pm Shotgun [Maximum of 44 golfers]
Venue: Elkhorn Golf Club
Fees: $75 Entry fee covers 9-holes, carts, and post-round wine/appetizers. Register and pay for Nine & Wine by contacting the Elkhorn Golf Club Pro shop:208-622-2271
Registration deadline for golf is: Wed, 8/30
We are excited for you to join the fun and look forward to playing together! We hope you will join us at this “friendraiser”! And speaking of friends, please feel free to invite yours!
* No WRWF funds are being used for the golf portion of this event.
Non-golfers are invited to the no-host M&M also at Elkhorn Golf Club from 5:00-7:00 pm.
Guest speaker: Alli Collins, Executive Director, Hospice and Palliative Care of the Wood River Valley.
Calendar
Aug 24 - Community CPR 5:30 pm - Hosted by Ketchum Fire Department. Phone Kat for details: 208-726-7805 ext: 4
Sep 6 -Nine & Wine 3:00- 5:00 pm Elkhorn Golf Course, followed by the M&M
Sep 6 - M&M Friendraiser 5:00 - 7:00 pm Elkhorn Golf Clubhouse. Guest speaker: Alli Collins, Executive Director of Hospice and Palliative Care of the Wood River Valley
Sep 14 - Family First Aid 5:30 pm - Hosted by Ketchum Fire Department. Phone Kat for details: 208-726-7805 ext: 4
Sep 24 - First Aid for Teens 4:00 pm - Hosted by Ketchum Fire Department. Phone Kat for details: 208-726-7805 ext: 4
Sep 28 - Heartsaver CPR 5:30 pm - Hosted by Ketchum Fire Department. Phone Kat for details: 208-726-7805 ext: 4
Oct 3 - M&M 4:30-6:00 pm at Zenergy. No host bar and bites.
Nov 5-7 - Philanos: PowerUP! Baltimore 2023 National Conference: Theme The Spark Igniting Collaboration
L-R: Karen Taylor, Carol Thompson, Sally Halstead, Kathleen Eder, Louisa Moats, Melissa Doramus, Aracelli, Joy Spencer, Carol Hoffman
WRWF was excited to give members an opportunity to take a FieldTrip! to see our 2023 Grantee, YMCA. In July, a group of members visited Alturas Elementary School to experience the YMCA SummerBridge program in action.
Throughout five weeks in the summer, all 300 students are engaged from 8:00 am - 5:00 pm Monday through Friday. They are provided with transportation to school and receive breakfast, lunch, and snacks.
SummerBridge is a well-established program that runs like clockwork. Students receive instruction in reading, math, and STEAM throughout the week and celebrate with a field trip each Friday. What kiddo wouldn’t want to visit the ice caves, Mountain Humane, Swiftsure Ranch, Redfish Lake (and more) on a summer day?
This deep level of care and attention wouldn’t be possible without the extensive collaboration between the YMCA and other organizations, including Lee Pesky Learning Center, Teach for America, College of Idaho, Fare + Wise (formerly I Have a Dream Foundation), Blaine County School District and Sun Valley Community School.
The big expense for this year was purchasing a new curriculum, which included student work books, grade appropriate reading material, as well as teacher materials.
The WRWF grant of $20,000 was used to build the Y’s SummerBridge program by funding youth leader wages, educational materials, curriculum, transportation, nutritional snacks, field trips and outdoor equipment.
Alturas Elementary School, 5th Grade Dual Immersion Kids go to Washington DC with support from WRWF
Alturas Elementary School, 5th Grade Dual Immersion Kids go to Washington DC with support from WRWF
Kelly Hoefer, teacher and organizer of the Washington DC visit, took 45 of her students to Washington in July to visit the U.S. Capitol among other things. Martina Bradford, WRWF Board Member and former Deputy Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, secured the tickets and hosted this class of students on their tour of the Capitol. In addition, WRWF sponsored their Capitol gift shop foray where they picked up souvenirs commemorating their visit to Washington.
The children spent the morning touring the U.S. Capitol which included Emancipation Hall where they posed in front of the model of the Statue of Freedom. The actual bronze statue sits atop the Capitol Dome and was raised on December 2nd,1863 to commemorate the builders of the Capitol who were slaves and sits in front of a bronze bust of Sojourner Truth.
The students also enjoyed a guided tour of the Capitol which included the Capitol Rotunda, the Old Supreme Court Chambers and the Senate Brumidi Corridor among other historically significant venues within the Capitol building. The students were exuberant and expressed their great appreciation and fun at visiting these historic facilities and learning more about our democracy and representative government.
Thoughts and Prayers for Member Becky Lopez and her son Eli
Fellow members, it is with great sadness that we share some devastating news about one of our members, Becky Lopez, who serves as co-chair of our DEI Task Force as well as the Executive Director of The Alliance, one of our grantees. In early July, her 5th grade son Eli was in a horrible accident on an ATV. Eli suffered a severe head trauma, has a fracture in his pelvis, upper left arm, and right shoulder blade. He has been receiving care at St. Luke's Children’s Hospital in Boise with his mother at his bedside. As you can imagine, both mother and son can use our thoughts and prayers at this difficult time. In addition, friends have organized a Go Fund me campaign to try and help Becky pay for the ever-mounting healthcare expenses to try and save her son. If you are so inclined to support them financially, you can do so here: https://gofund.me/4e3438f7
Welcome New Members
We are delighted to extend a warm WRWF welcome to new members who recently joined!
Patricia Aluisi
Merel Imel
Camie Johnson
Jeanne Liston
Jaye Anne Nussbaum
Eva Nye
New WRWF members are invited to provide photos and a bit of information about themselves to share in the News Brief. We have so many interesting members and it is fun to read about everyone’s background. Thanks so much and we look forward to meeting you soon. Welcome!
New Member Spotlight
Camie Johnson
We are happy to welcome new member Camie Johnson. Here she shares a bit about herself:
I was inspired to join WRWF after attending your annual meeting/party with member Barbara Wilson. I was inspired by the many and varied programs that are gifted WRWF grants. What a way to support this wonderful community!
I live here about eight months of the year. My husband and I are hopeful to be here full time in the next three years. We are motivated to contribute and become a part of the community here.
I am a former special education teacher with an emphasis and training in early reading assistance and strategies. I was “Reading Recovery” trained. I am a proud mother of two, and even prouder grandmother of three. I enjoy skiing, hiking and mountain biking. And for those reasons I am in heaven here in Sun Valley!
BFF Membership Initiative
Helpful WRWF ‘BFFs’ working the check-in station for the 2023 Annual Meeting
Calling all WRWF members! We’re here to remind you about our new membership initiative program “BFF! - Bring Forth Friends!”
If two new members join WRWF under your encouragement, you will be thanked for your recruitment efforts with either a $25 coffee card or a bottle of wine. This is an opportunity to continue growing and strengthening our collective membership through your personal and unique networks. Remember, there is no limit to how many rewards you can receive in a year. Be sure your BFFs give you credit when they join so we can track your success towards a reward!
The starting date for BFF! is retroactively set to January 1, 2023. Keep spreading the word about WRWF and our mission!
This reward is being underwritten by a generous WRWF member.
The following members have already been given bottles of wine:
Trinka Dyer
Linda Segre
Gayle Stevens
Joanne Wetherell
Graybird Foundation Farewell
Communications Committee members L-R Carol Hoffman, Graybird; Karissa Price-Rico, Committee Chair; Rebecca Ybarra Palma, Graybird; Sarah Shepard, Studio 360; Renee Spooner, Graybird; Leslie Silva, photographer. Not pictured: Jill Grossman, Graybird Founder; Emily Jones, Graybird.
For the past year, Karissa Price-Rico has chaired the Communications Committee with the Graybird Team working alongside her. This collaboration has enabled a smooth transition as GBF’s marketing engagement with WRWF comes to a close.
It has been an honor to witness WRWF’s impact on the Wood River Valley and the work of the accomplished women philanthropists in the organization. Please contact Karissa kpricerico@gmail.com to support the Communications Committee by contributing content and volunteering for one of the open roles.
Thank You, Sponsors!
Thank You, Contributors!
Carol Hoffman, Emily Jones, Heidi Marcus, Martina Bradford, Sandy McCullough, Rebecca Ybarra Palma, Karissa Price Rico, Sarah Shepard, Renee Spooner
