Friend, community member, mother, father, grandma.

What I am about to say is going to sound a little off topic at first. But you'll see what I'm saying by the end. Bear with me.

Little known fact about me. I'm a sociology minor. I chose this minor because I knew the study of people and behavior would wildly help me in the non-profit world.  Significant change happens with either one person of high influence or lots of regular people who band together. People like you. People like me. And this is truth. (Trust me. I thoroughly remember this on a college final after lots of coffee and sleep depravity).

With that being said, if you know me (Jessie here!), you know I'm a little obsessed with definitions. I like to look up a word that is used regularly but has lost meaning (or understanding of that meaning) due to overuse. So, let's look at the word "foundation". It is in our name, Clark-Pleasant Education Foundation.

Foundation: "An institution established with an endowment, for example a college or a body devoted to financing research or charity."

Here at CPEF our lives are truly devoted to...charity. And here at CPEF, we would love to partner with you in these charity efforts. This can look many different ways. 

To name a few:
1. Volunteer with us at events, in grant writing, or even to be on the board when positions open. 
2. Sponsor our events. You can help make such an impact by doing this!
3. Support us in our efforts for the silent auction or giveaways. If you have something (item, basket, gift card), this can be used!
4. Share, share, share. Share a blog post like this, or a social media post, or our newsletter and website. This form of partnership is literally just a click of a button.

The fact is (this is where my sociology comment above comes in), often times all it takes is a community of supporters to come together with one volunteer service, with on item, one basket, one card, one heart, and open hands saying, "Hey, I'd like to partner with you too. Let's do this together."

This is how people are affected. This how goals are attained. This is how a community betters. And this is how big change happens.

If you are interested in helping out you can:
Email Jessie at : jemcclain@cpcsc.k12.in.us
Email Jenny at: jzahm@cpcsc.k12.in.us
​Or go to the volunteer tab on our website.

Supporter Spotlight Story: Katie DeClercq
 Support, Passion, and Service to CPEF and a Community
 
“Service has just always been something that I do,” says DeClercq.  “Seeing the need is just the type of person that I am and something that I enjoy. I also think serving others is just something everyone should do and want to do. Someone may not have tons of money but there are so many other ways you can give and help.”
 
As a lifelong resident of Johnson County, Katie DeClercq has been teaching at Whiteland High School since 2003, where she is an English teacher with a passion for innovative education. She also serves as the advisor for the National Honors Society and Student Council, along with coaching the girl’s golf team. DeClercq proudly shows support for the Clark-Pleasant Education Foundation through the payroll deductions and her significant volunteer work.
 
​DeClercq has a natural passion for supporting students in their educational paths, which is why she became a teacher in the first place. As an educator, she is driven to help students to shine through hands-on learning in the classroom. The relationships with her students are what keeps her immersed in her job every day. She has a special connection with the school district, as her kids go to Whiteland, and she knows she is supporting their education in funding the Clark-Pleasant Education Foundation, which directly benefits her own kids’ as well as her students’ educations. She believes that CPEF supports their teachers and listens to what assistance they may need.
 
“I know the struggles of being a teacher and the Foundation supports us in every way that they possibly can, and they’ve done some really good things for us teachers with the grants and all the things they do for us, so putting it back is what’s important,” she says.
 
As the NHS advisor to the Whiteland high school students, she helps the kids coordinate their service hours to work for the Foundation to mutually benefit their required school hours and CPEF, as helping with Foundation’s events all goes back into the favor of their own educations.
 
She says that NHS is, “all about leadership, scholarship, and character. We really push our kids to be service oriented and require half of their service hours to be school related. We just feel that it’s important for them to be a part of the school community and so with the Foundation, it’s a great way for the kids to help give back to those people who have always given so much to them.”
 
DeClercq believes it is more important that NHS supports the Foundation in their needs rather than CPEF giving to their program, so then CPEF can turn around and support educators and the school, as a whole. NHS at Whiteland High School does not accept monetary support from the foundation.
 
“Our role is support them in their events because we know what kind of support that takes.”
 
DeClercq believes that involvement in CPEF allows her students to shine beyond the classroom setting.  
 
“Some of the stuff that my kids come up with and do is truly amazing. I had a student a couple years ago that created a program to match kids that needed tutoring with tutors. With a STEM grant, the Foundation funded a robotics team for each of the elementary schools in the district and I know there has been a lot of support from the community for that program.”
 
DeClercq is also a supporter of the Foundation’s payroll deductions. She says she always had payroll deductions to something worthwhile, as service is important to her. So, when they started offering the deduction for CPEF, she felt like that would be a good way to support the students, support her own kids, and support the community, which is an effort herself and her husband have always strived for.
 
“Well, in participating in payroll deductions we are funding ourselves, as in your own support, but I also think at the same time, we are supporting the kids that we are teaching and helping to grow which is really what we are supposed to do. As educators that is our mission. To support all the kids in Clark-Pleasant, not just the ones we have in class.”
 
By: Colleen Kincaid

Or at least one form of happiness, right?!

I've mentioned this a little bit before, but find it oh so fitting to talk a little about Amazon Smiles and Kroger Plus Rewards around this time of year.

This beautiful season marks love, family, laughter, gifts, peace, joy, dancing in the kitchen with music and cookies while the fireplace crackles...
It also means end of year giving for non-profits like us. Or, let's be honest, all non-profits.

So what is Amazon Smiles, why is this so important, and how can I use it at no cost to me?
Why, I'm glad you asked!

Amazon Smiles is a sister site to Amazon. There's not a difference within the two sites except that on Amazon Smiles, when you purchase your groceries, loads of books and cookware (just me?), and clothing (oops, that's me again) you can link Clark Pleasant Education Foundation as your non-profit of choice and Amazon will donate to us. No cost to you! Except your original $207 on Christmas supplies along with a giant light up outdoor candy cane. True story!

Kroger Rewards is very much the exact same way! You buy the groceries, holiday candles, and supply of toilet paper (limit of 2) and they donate!

This year, 2021 we pooled together the donations from Amazon Smiles and Kroger Rewards with teacher grant funds so that we could give out more grants. This is how important it is AND you reap the benefits of it all! Everything goes back into the Clark Pleasant pool. 

We would LOVE to give away even more grants next year! Help us help you by giving in such a low key way that you wouldn't even know or spend anymore money than you were planning to anyway. There's no lose! It's an all around win, win, win!

If you are interested, our Amazon and Kroger account will be linked below. Or just click the Giving tab at the top of this website, clarkpleasanteducationfoundation.com, and sign up. It's fast. It's easy! Just the way giving should be!

Webster's dictionary classifies embodiment as "a tangible or visible form of an idea, quality, or feeling." Giving is sometimes seen as "vague" simply because there are so many ways that we can give. We give pieces of ourselves to our family, our work, our friends, our passions...

And if you are ever lucky enough...to someone that you don't know or will never know. 

Why is that form of giving the most deeply cherished?

Well, it's easy to give and do for the people that we know and care for. It's never easy to give yourself or your hard working funds over to someone that you have no ties to. But this action is the proof and embodiment of love and giving. It's because we don't have to do anything. We don't have to give anything. But we do so of our own free will never knowing what the outcome will be, but walking in faith and trusting that the outcome is just enough to make a positive difference.

This year for Giving Tuesday we have beautiful tumblers available for purchase. These tumblers will keep bellies full of good drink and hands warm when we feel the nip of an impending winter wind. But they will also keep so many hearts warm. Your own. And all of the recipients that your great gift helps.

To educate.
To know they matter.
To understand they can do anything.
And to be the example of kindness that everyone talks about.

But do we act on the idea of giving?
Do we extend the kindness that has, over our lifetime, been so graciously offered to us?

I invite you to do this with Clark Pleasant Education Foundation today. Let us all be the tangible embodiment of giving.

Now, go forth and do great things.

*Simply go to our home page to order your tumbler now. We are taking orders from now through Giving Tuesday! You will also automatically be entered into the chance to win a Starbucks gift basket, priced at a $100 value!

Good luck!

Hi, friends! 

This is Jessie here, outside on my front porch rocking chair on this warm fall Monday. Now all I need is a hot cup of coffee to complete the fall feel!

Fall vacations are ensuing right now and families are gathering. As the pumpkins are being bought and baked goods delicately created, I can't help but think about what it is to be human. From what I have captured, before working at a non-profit, I knew that there was good, but that bad also existed. Sometimes it was hard to tell where the balance tipped. 

For four-years of college, my pr professor and mentor told me continuously to "Do good things for good people." I started to envision what this could possibly look like. And it looked like the world of non-profits. So after graduation, I didn't just take a meek step into the uncharted waters of this sector; I dove straight in.

This is what I have found in the past several months.
Being human in a non-profit world looks a lot like the following:

-Pulling complete strangers up to give them a head-start, a chance, at a good life.
-Encouraging one another and seeing everyone as a fellow helper and friend.
-Seeing every singular person's duty as incredibly important.
-Filling in the gap for others... always.
-Sticking together and finding a way to navigate a very vast world.
-Allowing yourself and others to feel small.
- Sharing, sharing, sharing.
-Giving, giving, giving.
-And, gracious, do community businesses truly come through?! (Thank you to ALL our donors and sponsors)!

As I say this, I want to speak about payroll deductions. You see, I was sitting for days trying to find a way to say what needed to be said; to explain what is so greatly important.

A payroll deduction, my friends, can come in the form of a simple one dollar bill from your paycheck. To put this in perspective, you can't even buy gum for a dollar anymore. Or, if you feel called to do so, this could look like five dollars. To look at this in a different way, this could be one Starbucks Latte'. And maybe the fact that this is such a small amount is what is causing your reservations. How could it even matter? If that is the case I will say this to you.

We were finally able to create an endowment from payroll deductions because of the one dollar-or five dollars- from many teachers. This was something we have been striving and planning and reaching for, for so long now! And we did it, because of you all. Now, because of this, $1000 a year will go to student scholarships!

We now ask of you, because you have brought us this far, how much more can you reach? How much more can you do? What difference in a life can one dollar really mean?

Because if you ask me, based on what I have seen from the non-profit sector, small is never really small at all. Instead, it is all a domino effect that changes the trajectory of lives.

Will you ever know? Probably not.

But can you ensure that you are doing good things for good people? I would argue...absolutely.

So let me ask you...

What can you do with one dollar?

Oh...and a little PSA...

Every single person who signs up for payroll deductions (whether it's $1 or $20 or $300) is automatically entered into a monthly raffle to win $250 cash. This is a generous donation from Bailey and Wood (and can we all get a THANK YOU)!

Take care, all! Have a beautiful fall break:)

If you were not able to read the Daily Journal on Friday, September 3, then here is the big announcement that has been so hard to keep to ourselves!

The Clark Pleasant Education Foundation now how a new scholarship in the name of the Doub family. The Doub family has made this $90,000 scholarship possible as a tribute for their family past and the generations to come. This new endowment will allow us to award a four-year $1,000 scholarship to any student with the same values that the Doub family holds dear. This not only leaves a great legacy behind for the Doub family, but it impacts the lives of future students. Who knows how many lives those students will impact in return?

No. The Doub family is doing so much more than meets the eye. They are causing a positive ripple effect that will last far longer then them. And isn't this how lives are changed?

So why does Whiteland mean so much to the Doub family?

Many of the descendants of the Doub family call Whiteland schools their alma mater. The land personally farmed by ancestor David Edwin Doub (1855-1933) is now where the brand new Ray Crowe Elementary School and Clark Pleasant Middle School rests. Grassy Creek Elementary School is where Mary (Boner) Doub's (1861-1933) family homestead was located.

David and Mary's five children (Arnold, Virgil, Harry, Harley, and Frank) all graduated from Whiteland Schools and led lives thereafter full of all five characteristics that the recipients of the scholarship must uphold.

These five...
-Faith
-Family
-Hard Work
-Integrity
-Responsibility...

Is what made the Doub family...simply...the Doub family.

We give thanks and recognition for this legacy and generous giving.
We give thanks for the Doub family.
We may never see with our own eyes the changes, chain reactions, or ripple effects this will cause in the lives of future students and everyone they come into contact with on their own journey through life. We can, however, know that there is no act of giving yourself that doesn't come without good.

​Thank you, Doub family. May your family name live on.