FEEE In The News

   With money from the $32.2 million school budget and grants from The Foundation for Excellence in Education in Easton (F.E.E.E.), Moreau Hall, Parkview Elementary and Center schools will now be able to turn any whiteboard into an interactive board like the Promethean boards used in the town’s other five schools.

   “It’s high time we have this because that’s how kids learn,” Moreau Hall principal Nick Botelho said. “The possibilities are endless.”

   Botelho also said another grant from F.E.E.E. allowed wireless ports to be installed in each of the three buildings meaning teachers can open a laptop and connect to the internet from anywhere in the building.

   While known mostly for raising money to fund technology in the town’s schools, The Foundation for Excellence in Education in Easton (F.E.E.E.) also awards grants each year. This year out of 31 applications submitted, F.E.E.E. awarded 16 grants totaling approximately $16,000 to six of the town’s seven schools.

   On March 26, The Foundation for Excellence in Education in Easton held its 21st annual Dinner Dance at the Shaw’s Center in Brockton. The evening included a silent auction and other fundraising activities.

   Every dollar raised at the Dinner Dance and Auction goes directly to the Easton Schools. As in past years, all monies will be used to purchase state-of-the-art technology and to fund innovative educational programs, all of which fall outside the school system’s operating budget. Thanks to the generosity of our community, F.E.E.E. has raised more than $1 million for the Easton schools since 1989.

   Smith said the new non-geographic placement plan to send second-grade students to third grade at Olmsted or Richardson will be in place for the upcoming school year and the new Mac computer lab in the library supplied by The Foundation for Excellence in Education in Easton (F.E.E.E.) has been a boon for the school.

   The Foundation for Excellence in Education in Easton is celebrating its 20th anniversary with the goal of surpassing $1 million in donations.

   The all-volunteer group has raised more than $950,000 since its inception in November 1989. It hopes to surpass the million-dollar mark at its annual fundraising dinner-dance to be held March 20 at Christina’s in Foxboro.

   On behalf of the students, families, and staff of the Parkview Elementary School, I would like to express our thanks and appreciation to the Foundation for Educational Excellence in Easton (F.E.E.E.). Each year, FEEE has considered applications for grants of varying amounts to accentuate the offerings provided in the schools as well as providing additional computers and other equipment. Over the past six years that I have been in Easton, I have been amazed at the overwhelming generosity of F.E.E.E. and the numerous contributors through whose donations have yielded hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of technological equipment to the Easton Public Schools. This year is no different.

   The Foundation for Excellence in Education in Easton has awarded more than $16,000 in grants this year to teachers and administrators who proposed projects to benefit students in the Easton public schools.

The grant component of F.E.E.E. is designed to encourage innovative ideas among teachers to enhance curriculum.

   The Foundation for Excellence in Education in Easton (F.E.E.E.) was founded in 1989 by a visionary group of volunteer Easton citizens that saw a need, the need to ensure the students in Easton have the latest and best technology available to them throughout their education from K-12.

This need was there because the operating budgets simply did not allow for adequate funding of technology needs and that is still true today.

   ‘People who are into [dollhouses] as a hobby are really into it,” said Goebel, an Easton resident who owned a Springfield-based dollhouse and miniature company until 1996. ”I don’t want any old customers thinking I’m back in business. I only made this one to help the schools.”

The ”one” she refers to is a nearly 3-foot high, fully electrical dollhouse she has worked on for several hours every day since early September. Instead of selling the house, which she said could retail for as much as $2,200, she donated it to an auction run by the Foundation for Excellence in Education in Easton to raise money for the town’s public schools.

   Strapped with budget woes made worse by several failed override attempts, Christine Margulies, technology specialist for the Easton School Department, knew updating computer labs at the Olmsted and Richardson schools was hardly a fiscal priority.

So instead of looking inside the district for funding, she turned outside – to the Foundation for Excellence in Education in Easton, a nonprofit group that raises money to support town schools. During the past 12 years, the volunteer group, known as F.E.E.E., has raised $310,000 for school initiatives, many of them technology-based, according to president Ken Fernandes.