At Kennedy, building a foundation for the future

Alumni, community, businesses launch nonprofit to provide support network, funding for school programs

‘‘This is my school, my community, my students and I want the best for them,” said Riddick, whose son also attended the school.

The foundation, which will have its launch celebration during Kennedy’s homecoming Saturday, is a nonprofit aimed to provide support and funding for school programs through partnerships with businesses and alumni.

The foundation, which is separate from the school, includes officers and volunteers from inside and outside Montgomery County Public Schools. Its major goal is supporting the school through connections and financial support for programs and projects that cannot be funded through MCPS. Teachers and administrators also can apply for grants through the foundation.

A portion of the foundation’s budget will come from annual fees. Alumni would pay $50 and would receive a listing in the foundation’s directory and Web site (www.JFKEdFoundation.org), a season pass to all Kennedy events and an invitation to alumni network social events.

Businesses would pay $500 a year, which provides space on the Web site, two season passes to events, invitations to partnership and social networking events, and a foundation display sign for the business.

Larry Eiser, president of the foundation, said it is important to improve the school’s performance because it has an impact that extends beyond the walls of the school.

‘‘I’m among the large group of people in whose interest it would be for Kennedy High School to be seen as universally excellent,” Eiser said. ‘‘I share that role with everybody in the cluster, the business, the county.”

Eiser has two children at Kennedy and one who graduated in 2006.

Eiser said Kennedy already has great academy programs, including Cambridge; the Leadership Training Institute; MediaCom: Multimedia and Telecommunications; and Tri-M: Medical Careers, Sports Medicine and Sports Management. Those academies could all benefit from extra funding for programs and field trips, Eiser said.

Nadine Nadal Monforte, 17, a senior in the Cambridge Academy and a student ambassador with the foundation, said extra funding would help students afford to take Cambridge exams. She said the program requires three to six tests each year and each can range from $35 to $100.

But while funding is important, Eiser and other foundation officials say the foundation is also about relationships that can be formed within the community.

The foundation has benefited from Winchester Homes and its parent company’s nonprofit foundation, the Weyerhaeuser Company Foundations. Winchester Homes, a Bethesda-based company that is behind a 773-home development on the site of the Indian Spring Country Club within the Kennedy cluster, donated $10,000 as a startup grant for the foundation.

Principal Thomas Anderson said before he started at the school in 2006, teachers, parents and administrators were already planning on how the foundation could improve the school.

Anderson said the people who have volunteered to become part of the foundation will enable the school and its name to get places that it might not have otherwise.

‘‘They have the time and resource of knowledge to go out and be of real assistance,” Anderson said. ‘‘They will be dealing with the businesses and letting them know about the resources that are here at the school. This is the future.”

He also said the foundation could bring back that sense of a close-knit community in the area, where business owners know students and residents come to Kennedy functions, whether or not they have children at the school.

The alumni network is also a human resource, Anderson said, because of the professions represented on the board, including a lawyer, high school teacher and a college professor.

As a teacher at Kennedy, Joanna Greer said the foundation has the potential to move beyond the classroom in many ways. Greer said she saw the concept at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School and thought the cyber café the school created as a result of the foundation was a good way to bring technology to every student.

One of Greer’s ideas for Kennedy was to bring in a landscaping company to work with students taking horticulture class to create a garden on school grounds.

All involved say the foundation will only be a positive addition to the school and community. In fact, many say it is their duty to give back.

‘‘I owe that place,” Eiser said. ‘‘That school has provided so much to me and my family.”

Getting it started

The schedule of events at the John F. Kennedy High School Educational Foundation’s launch celebration:

10:45 a.m.-11:45 a.m. — Special JFK alumni⁄guest tours of the school building and campus led by student ambassadors with the foundation. Tours start every 15 minutes in the Joanne K. Johnson Auditorium foyer.

Noon-12:20 p.m. — A welcome presentation: ‘‘The Birth of a Foundation” in the auditorium.

12:30-2 p.m. — Mix and mingle in the foundation’s tent on the track infield until game time.

2-4 p.m. — Homecoming game and presentation of the Spirit Award.

4:30-4:70 p.m. — Alumni⁄guest post-game get-together at the Stained Glass Pub, 12510 Layhill Road.

Tickets to the game are $5 and will be available Saturday to alumni⁄guests in the auditorium. For more information about the event or the foundation, visit www.JFKEdFoundation.org.