The Alliance Public Schools Foundation is gearing up to host their annual fundraiser, to raise money for scholarships to local students and to provide grants for class projects.
Tim Garwood, Alliance Public Schools Foundation President, said that this serves as the foundation’s major fundraiser.
“We have a week-long display of items at the Knight Museum,” said Garwood. “It started on Monday, and they will be there all this week. It is a live auction through Kraupies. It’s called bidnebraska.hibid.com. We’ve gone throughout town and solicited not just from businesses, but from individuals. We’ve got a wide variety of items. I would encourage everyone to stop down there at the Knight Museum and see what all we’ve got on display.”
Garwood said there are 81 different items up for auction, including works from local artists, photographers and woodworkers, that were donated specifically for the fundraiser. The auction, which takes place online, will begin drawing to a close at 6 p.m. on April 2, giving people a final opportunity to bid on the lots. Garwood said with the number of items available, the auction will take approximately 30 minutes.
“It gets kind of exciting to watch and see all the different things,” Garwood said.
The funds raised from the auction will be used to fund scholarships for local students. Garwood noted that the deadline for scholarship applications is on April 1.
“We go through and review all the scholarship applications,” said Garwood. “We have a scholarship committee that reviews those and makes judgment calls on all that. We do that presentation to the kids in April. It’s kind of a busy time for us right now.”
Garwood noted that the amount of scholarships the Foundation gives varies year to year based on funds raised, grants and other contributions, though they have averaged more than $20,000 in scholarships given each year. He explained that the Foundation also provides grants for projects and items in schools.
“We solicit Excellence in Education Grants through the school system,” said Garwood. “We solicit to the teachers themselves and say, ‘Do you have class projects that don’t normally get funded through the public schools system, or is in their budget, or you’d like to do something extra; solicit to us a grant request and we will review them.’ We do that once a year, as well. We’ve bought tablets, and we’ve had miniature robots, and we’ve had some of the arts people take students to Fort Rob and see plays through the play department. Every year, we look at those kind of grants and requests as well.”
Garwood said he is excited by each of the items that have been been donated to the Foundation.
“We’ve got Archie Lawrence who has a beautiful cutting board up there,” Garwood said. “Chas Lierk and Jerry Underwood have beautiful photography. Dick Rischling, who used to be a band director here, has got a really nice painting that he’s done. Kyren Gibson, who runs the Carnegie Arts Center has donated one. Bob Peltz has donated a painting. You just go on and on. Tom and Becky Brandt donated tickets to the College World Series. It just goes on and on. It’s for a good cause, that’s the bottom line.”
Garwood said people can also view the items on the Foundation’s Facebook page.