The Sunriver Women’s Club (SRWC) announces the award of $50,000 to the South County Collaborative (SCC) to help improve educational outcomes, including graduation rates, in south Deschutes County. The group launched the “Power of Giving for Education” campaign on GivingTuesday 2024 and reached the $50,000 goal in just six weeks.
In 2024, La Pine High School (LPHS) experienced an eight percent increase in the graduation rate to 78.1%. This comes one year after an increase of almost 11 points in 2023. In 2021, LPHS had a graduation rate of just 59%. In 2022, SRWC members asked a group of south Deschutes County leaders: “What do you need to improve student success and the graduation rate?” The result was a $55,000 seed grant to fund a new, dynamic nonprofit, the SCC, dedicated to expanding opportunities to help La Pine and Three Rivers students stay engaged in and finish high school.
This second award will build on SCC’s efforts to promote school success. These include a variety of strategies: personal support to students and their families through mentorships, family activities, and activities that encourage engagement in school and school attendance. Programs that help students be job-ready such as internships in local businesses, career counseling and support for LPHS’s Career and Technical (CTE) programs are included. Over 90 percent of students in CTE programs graduate, however, many LPHS students cannot participate because of the school’s limited facilities.
The SCC and its original fiscal agent, Better Together, leveraged the original seed grant to get a $299,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Education (ODE). An important aspect of the new SRWC grant is to help the SCC meet the criteria to apply for renewal of the ODE grant to continue the great work that has begun.
SRWC President Brigitte Bourret provided this context, “The Sunriver Women’s Club began special fundraising efforts, in addition to our regular grants, to respond to an urgent, time-sensitive need. The Power of Giving for Education campaign launched on GivingTuesday was the latest effort. Previous special funding campaigns were the COVID-19 Emergency Fund, our 50th-anniversary fundraising for the original SCC seed grant and our Hunger Prevention Fund last year.”
The SRWC’s philanthropy program focuses on building a strong network of services in south Deschutes County. This is done through community grants and special fundraising projects for nonprofits and public schools that exclusively help people living in south Deschutes County. Because of generous member and community donations, the club has donated more than $1 million to the community since 1999.