The Ed Op Fund’s board of trustees announced a capital campaign last November to raise $45,000 that would support school trips, reading programs, career opportunities for district students, and teacher and student grants. The board of trustees agreed to match up to $25,000 in donations.

When the coronavirus pandemic first reached the North Country, the Ed Op Fund board took a break from fundraising. Members of the board instead formed the Next Level Committee, which set out to assess the Ed Op Fund’s achievements and goals going forward. Board member Mary Dietrich said the committee went through a sort of “strategic planning process” and created five initiatives in the district for the board to support. The committee identified those initiatives as costing around $42,000 annually, and they created the capital campaign last November based on that projection.

Although the fundraiser didn’t meet its $45,000 goal, it has just exceeded what’s needed to fund all the planned initiatives. By the Ed Op Fund board’s last meeting, the fundraiser had reached well over $21,000 in community donations that will be matched by the board.

The bulk of the donations will fund the district’s reading programs. The Ed Op Fund sponsors summer reading programs for district schools. The fund’s board is interested in funding an author series and a guest reader series, where authors and readers from the community could talk to students about their career or read a book together. The board also wants to create a summer lunch and library program that would invite students to be bussed into school to grab lunch and a book during summer break.

Another part of the donations would go toward funding an annual trip to Albany for fifth graders, where they could see a show at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady and visit Capitol sites. The Ed Op Fund board is also working on a new program that will help juniors at LPMHS visit regional colleges to help them envision their career paths. Additional funding would go toward student grants, teacher grants and individual opportunity grants for students who don’t have the money to achieve an academic goal.

The Ed Op Fund was created in part to help district students who are experiencing economic hardship. Treasurer Lynn Magnus said last November that 43% of Lake Placid students participate in economic assistance programs, and the Ed Op Fund was created by a few locals who wanted to help those Lake Placid students, and the schools, to overcome “economic hurdles.”

In the past six years, the fund’s board of trustees, now led by president and former LPCSD Superintendent Roger Catania, has raised $60,000 to provide grants for Lake Placid teachers and students. The Ed Opp Fund raised the additional $43,000 in just the last couple of months. A letter of appeal for community donations was sent out for the fundraiser just before Christmas, and the Ed Op Fund has received 84 donations ranging from $25 to $1,000 since then.

The donations came from a wide range of community members, according to Dietrich. She specified retired teachers and parents in the district as notable stakeholders who donated, but she said she didn’t want to attribute the effort’s success to one demographic since the contributions came from a variety of people.

“We cant really express our gratitude in terms of the generosity of the community, that they really looked at what we’re doing and trying to accomplish and how we’re trying to help the students of Lake Placid and Wilmington,” Dietrich said. “The community, I think, is very generous where our kids are concerned.”

While the capital campaign has ended, Ed Op Fund Vice President Sibyl Quayle said the fund is always accepting community donations. Donations can be made to the Ed Op Fund on the group’s website, www.edopfund.org.