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Community donors support school programs

News Photo by Julie Goldberg Alpena High School’s Career and Technical Education program received several donations and grants last school year to renovate the AHS mechatronics room, seen here on Friday.

ALPENA — For any program to be successful, it has to have the funds necessary to sustain and have an opportunity to make a difference in the community, and that’s true within Alpena Public Schools.

Programs within Alpena schools have been successful because of community donors, officials said.

Among the programs benefitting from donations are the Alpena High School athletic program, Wildcat Robotics, the Career and Technical Education program, arts, small groups within each school, and many others.

Since January 2018, the district Board of Eduation has accepted almost $256,000 in donations, according to board minutes on the district’s website.

District Superintendent John VanWagoner said people and groups have donated to programs they want to see benefit and grow.

“Kids are in need of supplies that they can’t afford, so people donate to them,” VanWagoner said. “People donate for lunches so students can have lunches if they don’t qualify for the free-and-reduced lunch program. People can donate to anything. We’ve had people donate some to infrastructure.”

VanWagoner said donations have helped the band program take trips and have real-world experiences that wouldn’t be possible without outside money. People have also donated computers so students are able to work from home if they don’t have access to a computer, VanWagoner said.

“Everyone is amazed with how generous the community is,” VanWagoner said.

“Our community is pretty strong with people that are just working hard to find every dollar and cent we can to run programs,” Alpena High School teacher and robotics coach Melissa Doubek said.

‘WIN-WIN FOR EVERYONE’

Donations that come into the district are approved each month by the APS Board of Education, with a letter of gratitude sent to donors.

“Community support is essential,” Alpena High Principal Thomas Berriman said. “We rely on the support of the community to be successful, and the community relies on the schools to produce successful graduates to help them. It’s a win-win for everyone. We need the community to function, the community needs our graduates that we’re producing to be sustainable to the economy.”

Support from the community helps provide top-level learning programs, he said.

“Our goal is to provide 21st century learning graduates and, in order to do that, the community has to support us so we can support them by producing those kids,” Berriman said. “That’s really what it boils down to.”

“They sympathize with your needs and, if you go to them, they’re more than willing to help,” Alpena High Athletic Director Tim Storch said of Alpena residents. “Not everybody is able to help, but we got lots of people that help out for $500 or $1,000 or even $1,500, and those things add up.”

NOT EVEN A PIPE DREAM WITHOUT SUPPORT

The Alpena High athletic program has greatly benefited from donations the past few years, with donors helping with Wildcat Stadium lights, a video scoreboard, and more.

Storch said fundraising for the athletic projects started a few years ago. Items were prioritized depending on when donations would come in. Storch said the video scoreboard, for example, used about $100,000 in community donations.

“It just shows the support that this community gives to the schools and, frankly, none of these things that I’ve attempted to do would even be a pipe dream without the support,” Storch said.

Two projects that will be completed this summer are the Alpena High gym floor and the Wildcat Stadium field. The gym floor will have both basketball and volleyball courts installed, and the field will receive an artificial turf. Last month, the district’s Board of Education accepted more than $600,000 in large donations and family endowment funds to go toward the new artificial turf.

Talks for the new field started last year when an April blizzard hit the area, Berriman said.

“It allows us to hold events if a snowstorm hits in April (because) it allows it to be cleared off and not only can our teams play, but we can invite other high schools in our area,” Berriman said. “It’s just a win-win for the community, for the schools, for Northeast Michigan.”

Julie Goldberg can be reached at 989-358-5688 or jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jkgoldberg12.

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