WESTERLY — How can we, as a community, best build community?
And how can we best enrich and enhance the “educational landscape of Westerly students” especially in the era of TikTok and Chat GPT and with news of the negative effects social media may be having on the mental health of America’s youngsters?
Those are the questions members of a committee of the Westerly Educational Endowment Fund have been asking themselves these days.
And now, the five member committee is inviting members of the the greater Westerly community — students and townspeople as well as teachers and school staff — to share their ideas about community building with an eye toward funding new projects dealing with the theme of “building community.”
“We decided to go beyond the campus,” said Deb Ventresca, who chairs the fund’s Grant Committee, noting that the endowment fund has mostly awarded grants to teachers over its 20-year history to help fund mainly school-related projects. “We’re thinking outside the box.”
Ventresca said she and the other Grant Committee members — Megan Herlihy, Susan Ljungberg, Chris Lund, Deb Pendola and Colleen Saila — would like to hear ideas from grant applicants about ways to foster “creative discussions” that could inspire ways to “enhance and enrich the learning process of our students by building community.”
“We’re trying to get the word out,” she said, “and to connect with the wider community.”
On Wednesday, Ventresca met with the full foundation board to further explain the Grant Committee’s idea to be more inclusive with grants.
“We’ve been really thinking about how we can help,” Ventresca told the group of roughly a dozen people gathered in the conference room at the Westerly Community Credit Union. “Especially given the mental health crisis.”
“We want to include students,” she said, “we value investing in the future … investing in the next generation.”
Mostly, Ventresca said, “we want to get people together to talk and to think of ways to directly address today’s challenges.”
Attorney Michael P. Lynch, who serves as president of the fund, also stressed the importance of improving the “wellness of students” and of supporting programs that help do the same.
Ventresca said while the endowment has funded many “community” projects over the years — from a communitywide book club to a ship-building class at the Westerly Education Center, and from support for the high school culinary program to funding a mural as part of the townwide Bricks and Murals project, this request has a different slant.
Some ideas for grant possibilities might be things like “team building; collaboration; improving classroom environments, culturally and physically; fieldwork; improving neighborhoods and beaches; beautification of local areas and neighborhood projects like hobby clubs, book buddies, tutoring programs.”
The first batch of grant applications is due by June 1, Ventresca said. If funding is still available, a second round will become available with a due date of Aug. 1.
Ventresca said the grant application process has been streamlined and that more information — along with applications — are available www.weefri.org/.
The endowment fund, a certified 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, was the first of its kind in the state when it was created in 2001. Initially, the idea for the endowment was to fund things like after-school computer instruction for parents and students, an elementary chorus and band program, and expanded sports and recreation activities.
The Westerly School District partnered with the Rhode Island Foundation, the venerable 100-year-old Providence-based center for philanthropy, to create the fund. The foundation selected Westerly as the “sole pilot” for the “future creation of permanent endowments for every school district in the state,” it said at the time. Calling the endowment “a model for the rest of the state,” the foundation provided a $25,000 matching grant to add to the first $25,000 raised for the endowment. The endowment met its goal months after its creation. The first major gift, $2,000, was made by members of the Westerly High School Class of 1951.
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