Midway through last Rotary year the Rotary Club of Edmond began a collaboration with the Edmond Public Schools Foundation. The Club proposed to join with them to complete DonorsChoose projects in Edmond Schools.
EPSF monitors projects that teachers in the Edmond School system submit to DonorsChoose. They then notify the Club about the projects. When we decide to complete a project, we send funds to EPSF and they forward them on to DonorsChoose.
Rotary Club of Edmond's goal is to see that as many projects as possible get completed. To make this feasible, the club set as criteria that the Club would cover no more than ½ of the funds needed and that the project had to have received some meaningful support from others. Special attention is given to projects that are eligible for matching funds from other organizations.
The trial worked really well and the 2023-2024 Board instituted the project as an official Club Community Service Project.
When we fund a teacher’s project, the following is placed on the project funding synopsis locally and nationally:
This new year began with a BANG. Not only did the school year begin with many teachers posting projects, but on very short notice the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that for one day only, the Foundation would match 50% of any donations made.
A Gates Match does not guarantee that a project gets completed, only that donations made will be matched. If the project does not complete, the donation goes away.
With the match, the Club was initially able to complete 3 projects each for the two elementary schools the Club has an ongoing relationship with.
Then EPSF showed us how the Gates match was garnering support for a number of projects, making them eligible under our criteria for completion. So, the Club set about rounding up additional funding to increase our capacity to get more projects completed.
EPSF continued to feed us projects until the whistle blew at 4:45 pm and the Match ended.
The final result was that we were able to complete 40 teacher projects benefitting 6,215 students. Each teacher and teacher’s assistant, each school principal and staff, and often each school’s PTA officers learned that the Edmond Rotary Club was serious about community involvement and service.