Batesville, IN— A third year of fundraising for flexible learning spaces (FLS) in the local public schools has culminated in a $20,000 donation from the Batesville Community Education Foundation (BCEF) to the Batesville Community School Corporation (BCSC). In recognition of that financial commitment from BCEF, the John A. Hillenbrand Foundation, and the CREATE Foundation, as part of a larger project benefiting all the local schools, will also be donating a combination of $28,000 to this project, bringing the total donated to BCSC from the three foundations to $48,000, according to BCEF executive director Anne Wilson.
This marks the third major donation from BCEF to BCSC for flexible learning spaces and brings the total donated by the education foundation itself to $70,000. Prior years’ funding from BCEF has been used for a complete transformation of one Batesville High School (BHS) English room in 2017 and, in 2018, three first-grade rooms were affected at Batesville Primary School (BPS) and a variety of pieces were placed in all third-grade classrooms at Batesville Intermediate School (BIS). Money from the 2019 donation is earmarked for pieces in all Batesville Middle School (BMS) sixth-grade classrooms ($15,000) and a donation toward components in the BIS Media Center ($5,000). In addition, the $28,000 from the John A. Hillenbrand Foundation and the CREATE Foundation will be divided among each of the four BCSC buildings, each receiving $7,000 for FLS renovations.
“The willingness of BCEF to increase its funding to $20,000 so those dollars could be leveraged to help more students reflects the depth of commitment of this organization to education,” said Paul Ketcham, BCSC superintendent. “BCEF’s pledge indicated to the other two foundations that our school corporation had the backing to support another large-scale donation from them. We are blessed to live in a community where three organizations are willing to make significant financial contributions to help students.”
“BCEF would like to thank the John A. Hillenbrand Foundation and the CREATE Foundation for working with our organization to expand the impact on students,” Wilson said. “These flexible space transformations are expensive, and with the three foundations collaborating like this, we are moving more quickly toward flexibility in every single classroom. That’s a phenomenal achievement.”
