How does Lick fund special student initiatives not funded by the annual budget?
Often these special funds are provided by grants through the L-W Alumni & Development Office.
Located at 31 Howth Street, the Alumni & Development Office creates engagement opportunities for parents and alumni, cultivates relationships, and raises money for Lick. The office offers grants and creates funds for needs or interests that may not have been addressed in the budget. The opportunities offered by the office are funded by many sources, including The Event and donors with particular interests for funding various special student opportunities.
Three of these grants, for example, are funded by an alum, by another alum’s parents, and a third by the Edward E. Forward Foundation.
Thomas Kamei Grant
Thomas Kamei, who graduated from Lick-Wilmerding in 2008, continues to talk about the impact the school had on him, in particular his independent study with Anton Krukowski and the wood shop class. In a meeting with Head of School Eric Temple and Director of Alumni & Development Nancy Kehoe in New York a few years ago, he expressed interest in supporting the school in a way that would be very tangible and meaningful for him.
Soon after, he established a grant that initially supported social entrepreneurship, but he has since broadened the grant. The initiative annually offers three separate $500 grants to encourage students to work on meaningful projects without financial burdens. The summer of 2015 was the first time students took advantage of this opportunity.
Because Nazzie Talebi ‘16 and Quinn Donohue ‘16 are both interested in engineering and plan to pursue this in the future, they created a program called Kamei Kids to encourage students at Mission Dolores Academy to enjoy science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
Throughout July 2015, the two planned lessons to cover a large range of STEM topics. Over seventy-three students — grades one through five — participated in the project.
Talebi explains that “the main objective was to expose the students, who primarily were from underserved communities, to STEM and different types of engineering while also having a lot of fun. This way, with this exposure and their new knowledge of various engineering subfields, they can hopefully envision themselves as engineers and be inspired to consider pursuing engineering in the future.”
Donohue adds, “It gave me an opportunity to pursue something I’m interested in, and shape my summer in a way that was meaningful for me.” Using fun activities such as Coke and Mentos, rocket-powered cars and an egg drop, Donohue and Talebi taught lessons related to bridge-building, aeronautical engineering and chemical engineering. They also led and supervised field trips for the children to explore various topics of STEM. Talebi and Donohue created a project that aligns with Kamei’s vision for the grant.
Philanthropy Initiative Course
Also established in 2008, the Philanthropy Initiative elective course materialized from a large donation from Bill and Stephanie Mellin, parents of Hillary Mellin ‘08. Having been members of several boards of nonprofit organizations, the Mellins wanted to leverage their ability to do something good in the world. This became the impetus for the class.
This course explores issues around social justice, equity and ethics as it relates to philanthropy. The class receives $20,000 from the endowment’s interest to donate to a local organization that is curated after much research. “It’s highly gratifying to see that the class was created and is successful. In that respect, it has wildly exceeded our expectations,” says Bill Mellin.
Currently, the students of the philanthropy course are enjoying the “Speaker Series,” in which they have the opportunity to meet and question distinguished leaders in the nonprofit field such as Robin Richards Donohoe, Co-Chair of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, Premal Shah, Co-Founder and CEO of Kiva, Ashley McCumber, CEO and Executive Director at Meals on Wheels of San Francisco, and Robin Wolaner, COO of We Care Solar. The students will soon participate in a month of service projects with local organizations in preparation for their $20,000 donation.
Fund for Success
Established in 2011 just before the arrival of current Head of School Eric Temple, the Fund for Success is a fund that former Head of School Al Adams created through a grant from the Edward E. Ford Foundation.
“The fund speaks to the mission of the school, and supports students in really important ways that are behind the scenes.” Initially supporting initiatives on campus such as META, it has expanded to include loaner laptops, discounted BART tickets, report card translations for parents and the work of PACT and RISE, programs that connect younger students of color from independent schools with mentors from Lick.
Funds donated during Lick’s annual giving campaign are another source of revenue, but their use is restricted by the donor for a specific purpose.
Restricted Operating Fund
Kehoe is particularly excited about the Restricted Operating Fund, established to help launch a robotics club as well as computing and robotics classes in Lick’s Technical Arts Department. “It’s a great example because it blends the donor’s intents and an academic need seen by students, the department and administration,” Kehoe says. Recently the club bought a plasma cutter to build intelligent machines. The Alumni & Development Office’s next big project is to raise money for the new main building on campus!
