La Grande Education Foundation continues to help students to succeed

LA GRANDE — If music is a universal language, the members of the La Grande Fiddle Club are learning to express it with greater fluency, thanks to Earl Davis.

Davis, a La Grande musician, is an instructor for bass players who are members of the La Grande Fiddle Club, a school district program open to youths in grades two to five.

An experienced string bass player, Davis attends every weekly La Grande Fiddle Club practice. He shares his wisdom with the Fiddle Club's two string bass players, Tision Yima-Kenny and Thomas McNamee.

“He is a tremendous help and a wonderful mentor for the children,’’ said Carla Arnold, the leader of the La Grande Fiddle Club and Central Elementary School’s music teacher. This is the first year that the Fiddle Club has had an instructor specifically for its string bass players.

"We are so grateful to have him," Arnold said of Davis, a veteran who has been a member of the Grande Ronde Symphony Orchestra for eight years.

Davis is able to help the bass players thanks to the La Grande Education Foundation, which provides him with a stipend.

The Fiddle Club is one of many La Grande School District organizations or initiatives which have been boosted by the foundation, a nonprofit organization set up in 1995 to help offer support in areas that couldn't be funded by the district itself.

Many of these school foundations sprung up around the state in the wake of the 1990 passage of Measure 5, which capped property-tax rates in the state. Dale Lauritzen, the president of the La Grande Education Foundation and one of its founders, says the measure, which put a financial squeeze on school districts, was part of the reason behind formation of the foundation.

“A lot of what we did was in response to that,’’ Lauritzen said.

Foundation beneficiaries in addition to the La Grande Fiddle Club include La Grande High School’s cheerleading program, which started up in August 2023 after being shut down for 10 years. Kimberly Westenskow, LHS’s cheer coach, credits the foundation with providing 25 percent of the funding LHS needed to purchase 25 new cheerleading uniforms and pom-poms for its program. The uniforms were needed because the old ones were in no condition for cheerleaders to wear because of their age and wear from previous use.

“It made such a difference for us,’’ said Westenskow of the foundation's donation to the cheerleading program.

'Enrichment funding'

In all, the foundation, which now has assets of at least $400,000 has given more than $200,000 in grants and donations over the past 29 years.

"The foundation wants to provide enrichment funding for things we know the school district cannot pay for because of financial problems," said Robert Kleng, a member of the La Grande Education Foundation’s board of directors.

None of the funds is spent for things taxpayer money traditionally covers, including salaries and operating expenses, Kleng said.

Instead, La Grande School District educators and staff members are able to make requests for the funding of special projects each year.

For example, requests have been granted in recent years for a robotics team at Central Elementary School, the purchase of small live animals for an aquatic in-class ecosystem in a grade school; a field trip to Wallowa County to learn about subjects including subalpine ecosystems and Nez Perce culture and the building of duck nest boxes for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Payments from the foundation’s general fund for projects like these in 2023-24 have ranged from $200 to $1,500.

The foundation also administers 17 endowments, typically contributed by a single donor, Lauritzen said.

Those endowments help fund items such as scholarships, the high school football, basketball, golf, soccer and swimming programs, the district's band and choir programs, the elementary school performing arts program, the high school's art and mock trail programs, the district's library program, a general excellence in education fund and Sherry's Angels Fund, which aids students who are homeless.

The beneficiaries of these endowments have received between $210 and $4,857 in 2023-24, according to Sheila Sands, the co-chair of the La Grande Education Foundation Board along with Dale Lauritzen. Members of the board in addition to Sands, Lauritzen and Kleng are Tonya Kausler, Patti Martin, Marti House and Zachary Lauritzen.

The largest donors to the foundation are Fred and Patricia Jarrard, who donated $100,000 in 1998. The money established an endowment for the LHS boys and girls basketball programs and cheerleading program. Fred Jarrard, who died several years after making the donation, was a 1947 LHS graduate.

To start an endowment for a program or a scholarship a minimum a total of at least $2,000 must be donated, Dale Lauritizen said.