How is this fundraiser different from all other fundraisers?
Good question! Coming off the heels of Passover, it’s appropriately phrased too. This auction, the Early Childhood Center (now the Early Learning School’s) seventh annual, raises money for the all-important scholarship fund.
So what? Who cares? (read that in this voice) Well, preschool is expensive, and sometimes prohibitively so. Some of you with kids in public school may have forgotten the burden that providing a quality Jewish education in a loving environment can place on the family finances. It’s brutal.
The scholarship fund doesn’t really provide a “full ride” to students for families in dire need. It provides some much needed incremental support to lots of families at the school—lightening the burden of expensive (and worth it!) early childhood care and education.
And some of you believe that all money raised by the community should go directly to the classroom. It’s a valid opinion, but hear us out—a classroom full of children from diverse backgrounds and from not-financially-strapped-because-they-aren’t-paying-their-college-savings-money-for-preschool households makes that classroom what it is. It’s the children in the school who make the Early Learning School what it is—not how nice the blocks and chairs are. And happy children make happy teachers, which makes happy administration and happy parents. See how that works?
So this May the fourth, may the Force be with you to the point that you can’t help but put on your date-night best and join the other parents and friends of the JCC for a fun night out. Plus, it’s spring! It’s Denver! It’s the end of the school year! So join us for a glass of wine and spend some money helping out your fellow parents.
Sara Schiffer, ELS Parent
