Sanford employees guide HM-R students through a Christmas shopping trip for gifts for the less fortunate – one of several activities the two groups do throughout the year, including classroom reading and mentoring, bicycle safety, blanket making, altruistic projects, FMCT and Redhawks trips, a spring Field Day, and a 3-week summer art program.
Many of the Fargo Public Schools Development Foundation’s efforts to benefit the District’s students involves the funding of programs and initiatives. However, one of its flagship programs, Adopt-A-School, is centered on facilitating relationships between individual schools and area businesses.
The partnerships bring business employees and community organization members into the schools to assist with reading programs, tutoring, career awareness presentations, special events, mentoring, extra-curricular clubs, joint community service projects, field trips and other activities. The Adopt-A-School program began in 2001, and today it comprises 23 different school partnerships with F-M area organizations.
After a match has been made, planning teams from each school and business work together to discuss the needs of the school and the resources available in the partner business. Each school and business planning team is typically made up of four to six people, with the school planning team including the principal and usually one PTA representative. These two teams determine the activities to be undertaken at the school and occasionally at the business.
On April 26, the Foundation honored these groups for their work with children in the Fargo Public Schools at an informal reception at the Agassiz campus. AAS Partners were presented with a special pin and commemorative art print of artwork done by Hawthorne first grader James Lien, pictured below with Kiwanis South Point members Marlene Saar, Larry Pittgarn, and MaryAnn Berg.
Existing AAS partnerships are:
- Bennett Elementary School and Microsoft Business Solutions
- Ben Franklin Middle School and Bell State Bank & Trust
- Carl Ben Eielson Middle School and the NDSU Planning for College Success Program
- Carl Ben Eielson Middle School and Fargo, Fargo West, and FM-AM Rotary Clubs
- Clara Barton Elementary School and Dawson Insurance
- Clara Barton Elementary School and Forum Communications
- Discovery Middle School and Courts Plus
- Hawthorne Elementary School and Park Company Realtors
- Horace Mann/Roosevelt Elementary Schools and Sanford Health
- Jefferson Elementary School and the City of Fargo
- Kennedy Elementary School and Bank of the West
- Lewis & Clark Elementary School and Essentia Health
- Lincoln Elementary School and BlueCross BlueShield of ND/Noridian
- Madison Elementary School and Magnum, Ltd.
- Madison Elementary School and Fargo South Point Kiwanis Club
- Madison Elementary School and NDSU College of Pharmacy, Nursing and Allied Sciences
- McKinley Elementary and First Presbyterian Church
- Prairie St. John’s School and Sammons Financial Group
- Washington Elementary School and Phoenix International
- Woodrow Wilson High School and Wells Fargo Bank
For more information on the Adopt-A-School Program, contact Executive Director Carol Johnson, at 446-1041, or visit www.fargoschoolsfoundation.org.
