Drake Foundations Merge Into One

The Drake Benchwarmers and Parent Club are no more.

But, have no fear. The two organizations have simply joined forces with the Drake Fund to create one foundation that supports the entire school and refocus the volunteers’ and parents’ efforts.

You can support the new Drake Fund with their current pledge drive (see the brochure at right) or, more tasty, the next weekend.

Erin Badala, who is heading the transition to the new Drake Fund and the current pledge drive, answered some questions from a reporter, which we're re-running here:

How did the Drake Fund and the Benchwarmers differ?

 The Drake Fund was founded in 2000 by a group of parents to help fund academic extras at Drake. We incorporated as a nonprofit foundation to fund things that regular school funding could not. We asked teachers and staff to come up with ideas for programs and equipment and ideas that they could not fund through "normal" channels and we could try to fund their ideas. When we started The Drake Fund (and yes, I am a founding member-the only one still left!) all of the other schools in the Tam District already had foundations and we at Drake wanted to have one as well. 

In a very short time (10 years) we went from raising and funding approximately $25,000 per year the first year, to funding more than $127,000 in grants last year. The Drake Fund has funded every department at Drake  and equipment and programs ranging from laptops, iPads and Elmo cameras, to funding for the Cold Frame Project, to Partners at Lunch, guest artists for the Music Department, The On The Same Page project and so much more.

The Benchwarmers was a group that was founded many years ago to fund shortfalls to athletic programs. It has been an invaluable group to Drake and has funded every sports team for equipment and uniforms, run the athletic snack bars, provided volunteer manpower and most recently, has funded .

The Drake Parent Club, also founded decades ago, has provided countless volunteer hours and campus beautification and Staff Appreciation events at Drake.

Now, The Parent Club and the Benchwarmers have become committees of The Drake Fund, their boards have become board members of The Drake Fund and The Drake Fund is now the ONE foundation supporting the entire Drake community.

When was it first proposed to combine the two?

Actually, when founding The Drake Fund was being explored in 2000, we met with the Presidents of Benchwarmers and The Parent Club and proposed that we merge into one organization. Both Benchwarmers and The Parent Club had long and successful histories at Drake at that time and preferred to maintain separate goals: The Drake Fund would fund academic programs, The Benchwarmers would fund athletics and The Parent Club would provide parent education, staff appreciation and campus beautification.

We  continued this three organization system until just this summer when all three organizations worked very hard to merge into one. The transition is ongoing and will likely take a year or two to completely  and seamlessly merge. We ARE operating as one foundation serving the Drake community now.

What are the reasons for combining them?

The reasons this was the right time to merge are these:

To decrease confusion in the Drake High School community: All of us were hearing that people were confused about who funded what. Now The Drake Fund funds everything! People should know that their donation to The Drake Fund will be combined with the donations of others in our parent and local communities and increase the overall spending power of The Drake Fund and its ability to fund more and more at Drake.

Economics: In trying financial times, people were having to make choices as to where to put their financial contributions. Making a donation to the ONE foundation at Drake will result in our newly enlarged Drake Fund Board helping assess what the needs at the school are and what we are able to fund as one big group. Instead of competing for donations, cooperation seemed like the wisest choice.

To streamline volunteer efforts: Maintaining three separate organizations is a drain on the volunteer resources at Drake-or anywhere. There is an old saying the "many hands make light work" and we believe that joining all of the hands together towards a common goal-supporting Drake-can only be beneficial.

What will the effect be of this combination?

The effects of the merger are already being seen! And they are positive! The new Drake Fund Board has streamlined the donation process and are working hard to get the word out to our parent and neighbor communities that we are one foundation now. We announced our merger at Back to School Night and through our recently mailed pledge drive materials that all Drake families received in the mail.

The early response to our pledge mailing has been terrific and we are hoping to steadily increase donations from the Drake family community from 35% participation to as near to 100% as we can get! We have set a lofty goal of raising $300,000 to put back into Drake Fund grants this year! As one board, we are also overseeing the running of traditional event such as the Golf Tournament and the (next weekend), coordinating volunteers for our events, compiling and publishing the Drake Directory and so much more. We are also busy making the transition to one large organization by reevaluating our bylaws and streamlining our procedures to make grants to teachers and staff, teams and in support of the staff and general Drake community.

It's a huge task but so far, our merger has been well received by the parent community. Supporting Drake as a whole school community is our goal and we are well on our way. Of course we need the support of every family at Drake -through donations, using Scrip and volunteering of their time and talents.We urge parents to get involved with one of the committees of The Drake Fund and help The Drake Fund make an even bigger impact at Drake.