Increasingly, groups of teachers, as opposed to teachers alone, are submitting grant applications, said GVEF Board President Robin Weidemueller. The GVEF grant funding structure incentivizes collaboration among teachers, as $500 is awarded per teacher.

Another distinct feature of the GVEF grant funding structure is that no project is funded for more than three consecutive years. In this way, GVEF encourages teachers to design projects the district will take up. Over the years, the district has supported many GVEF-funded projects. For example, the district often matches GVEF grants with in-kind donations. Additionally, the district has built school infrastructure to support projects initially funded by GVEF, such as a ski and snowboard building unit and a Science-Technology-Engineering-Arts-Mathematics (STEAM) program at Gunnison Middle School.

“The thing that I love about GVEF is that it is small, but it makes a big difference for a lot of people, especially teachers and kids,” said Crested Butte Community High School English teacher Dave White, who served on the GVEF Board and has received several Teacher Innovation Grants over the years. “It’s the small moves that actually make the difference in the classroom … When you make a small change consistently over decades, those small changes are really easy to keep focused in the right direction.”

During the summer of 2021, CFGV provided GVEF with a Sustainable, Tough, Efficient, Purposeful (STEP) facilitator to help develop a strategic plan. Through this process, GVEF leaders rewrote their mission statement and identified goals, such as the goal to bring greater awareness of the foundation to the community.

“We wanted to bring awareness of our foundation and what we do for the schools and our community to the forefront,” Weidemueller said.

As a component fund of CFGV, GVEF does its own fundraising and is not eligible for grants from CFGV. Grants and special projects are funded by an endowment of $100,000 (established in 2008), individual donors and fundraising events, including an annual holiday card-making event honoring teachers. Both the Sugar Plum Festival in Gunnison and Santa Night at the Crested Butte Museum have featured GVEF Holiday Card booths.

As O’Banion sees it, the grants are more important now than ever before.

“The bond was specifically for facilities, and those funds cannot be used for teaching materials,” she said, referring to the $95 million dollar tax increase voters approved last year for school building expansion and facility improvements. “And so the need is still there … for teachers. Just because, you know, groceries are up, investments are down, everything costs more. Teachers usually fund things out of their own pocket. Teachers have a great need for it.”

Donations for the 2023-24 grants and special projects cycle are now being accepted through GVEF’s website. For more information scan the QR code below or email  gvef4kids@gmail.com.

(Mara Taylor-Heine can be contacted at mara@gunnisontimes.com.)