Our Story
The Wakefield Educational Foundation was founded in 1989 by a group of Wakefield residents and has a mission to provide a vehicle for the community to support, acknowledge and promote academic excellence in the Wakefield Public Schools. One of our community’s greatest resources is our young people, and they can reach their fullest potential when provided with a high quality and enriching educational environment.
Since it’s formation the Wakefield Educational Foundation has raised and awarded over $100,000 in grants to our Wakefield Public Schools. In the 2008-2009 school year, the Wakefield Educational Foundation awarded $17,000 to our Wakefield Public Schools. There were a total of twenty (20) grants that were funded across six (6) schools.
Wakefield has a very strong school system, yet each year, as costs to run the school system rise, we see greater and greater demand for WEF grants, with an overall increase of 50% in grant applications during the most recent school year. Last school year, we were able to fund 50% of the grant applications that we received.
WEF operates independently from the Wakefield School District and pursues and distributes funds from private sources, not replacing the town’s funding for schools, but supplementing the town’s ability to fund innovative and creative educational programs in the schools. WEF mini-grants support programs that enhance students’ education in Wakefield in several key areas: scholastic enrichment, arts in education, science and technology, math enrichment, and environmental science.
Our goals during the 2009-2010 school year include:
- Increase fundraising dollars over last school year by 15%
- Fund 100% of the qualifying mini-grant requests received during 2009-2010 school year
- Increase WEF Community Membership
- Recruit Corporate Sponsors for and Donors to WEF Programs
- Continue Celebration of Learning, STARS and Mini-grant programs
- Build community awareness and support for WEF’s efforts to further public education excellence in our schools!