Foundation gives over $8K in grants to HSSD
The Hot Springs Public Schools Education Foundation recently gifted 20 enrichment grants, totaling $8,350, to Hot Springs School District staff members to help fund specific classroom needs for the upcoming school year.
The foundation, a 501(c)(3) corporation established in 2017 by president, Q. Byrum Hurst, was formed to “strengthen and support public school students and initiatives in the heart of Hot Springs,” according to its mission statement.
Its latest offering marks the foundation’s third round of enrichment grants to be given away.
Hurst, a longtime local attorney, said Tuesday the idea of establishing the foundation initially came from former HSSD Superintendent Joyce Craft, now retired, who was the district’s first woman, as well as first African American woman, to serve as superintendent. She now serves on the National Park College Board of Trustees and the foundation’s board.
“(It) was really the brainchild of Joyce Craft, who felt like that the school, particularly the Hot Springs School District, needed funds that were not necessarily budgeted because the budget would be limited by the taxable income that was coming in,” he said. “And so there were things the teachers and administrators needed that were outside of the budget.”
He said Craft approached him a few years prior about creating a foundation.
“I didn’t know a lot about a foundation myself,” he said. “So we had to do some research, and our research revealed that there were some educational foundations across the state, but Hot Springs didn’t have one. Now, we have spent a considerable amount of time trying to organize, making sure that we had sort of the infrastructure in place before we asked people to give money. But for the last two years, we have been soliciting funds very aggressively and trying to use those funds to benefit the public school system in Hot Springs.”
The grants are dispersed through an application process in which the staff member explains the reason for the need and how many students it will impact. Examples include a science teacher who needs more microscopes, a physical education teacher who needs yoga mats, or even a teacher who needs more chairs for a classroom.
Hurst noted it has been very successful so far and it is very rewarding to be able to help the students through improving their classroom environment.
“You know, the reason that this be
comes important is because, when businesses start to settle in communities and they’re looking to a community to establish a business, one of the first things they ask about are the schools and the hospitals. They want to know what kind of education and what kind of medical care is available. And so you want your school districts to be able to offer the very best that they can,” he said.
Garland County is blessed with seven very good school districts in a relatively small geographic area, he said, but it is the inner city education that weighs the heaviest on his mind.
“The Hot Springs School District is right in the heart of the community,” he said. “And so we think that’s really important, and that it’ll be important for not only people when they move to a community, but when businesses look to where to move. If they have a school district that’s active, alive and able to offer education… Hot Springs High School says ‘World Class High School’ — and it is.”
Hurst said the foundation is not just for Hot Springs’ alumni that have maybe gone through the public school system, but also one that benefits the entire community of Hot Springs and, particularly, the business community. He noted he hopes to expand their contributions into the business arena and, in exchange, show the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce and others that support the local economy that not only does the district have a well-funded and budgeted school system, it also has the support of a foundation.
While he hopes the future gives the foundation better contributions and, ultimately, more money to be able to award grants, his larger goal is to be able to offer what he calls the “Trojan Promise,” which would provide full in-state college scholarships to students who complete grades K-12 from Hot Springs School District and graduate.
“In the future, I hope that’s where we can go and we can get to … I hope we can give larger and better grants,” he said.
“The foundation can only work with the cooperation of the school board and the Hot Springs School District administrators as well as the faculty, which all trickles down to the students. But I can say this: the members of the Hot Springs School Board have been extremely cooperative and they’ve given us support in every area,” Hurst said.
“And I would just say that without that, an educational foundation cannot be successful. And we will be successful and we’ll be more successful in the future. I’m looking forward to a bigger year than ever before.”