×

Foundation awards $90K

NORTHROP — A reception was held at Martin Luther High School in Northrop on Thursday to honor recent recipients of Schmeeckle Foundation grants.

Five organizations were awarded $90,000 in grants, and representatives of each were able to comment on how the funds will be utilized.

Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation received $40,000 in partnership with Adventure Playground Task Force for the creation of an accessible, inclusive playground space in Martin County. Shelly Krahmer of the Adventure Playground task force expressed thanks for the donation.

“Adventure Playground is an inclusive, accessible playground that we’re going to build at Gomsrud Park in Fairmont,” she said. “It’s designed to be accessible to children and adults with all physical disabilities, and has components and aspects for all cognitive disabilities as well. It’s an inclusive playground that we’re really excited about, and we’re really thankful that the legacy that the foundation left behind will be able to support that endeavor going forward.”

The second recipient was Apple Tree Dental, which received $10,000. Founded in 1985, the organization is a non-profit community dental clinic meant to address the unmet oral health needs of Minnesotans who face barriers to dental care. The funds were used to purchase a much needed Schick X-ray sensor for their Madelia Center.

Martin Luther High School got $20,000 for its project: “Fish, Flora and Fuel for the Future — Aquaponic Greenhouse Heated by Geothermal” to build an external, environmental science classroom that will be used to teach about horticulture, renewable energies, fuel production, engineering concepts and hydroponic agriculture.

Principal Paul Steinhaus said that while the term “greenhouse” might be easier to understand, he believes the best way to describe the structure is an “energy classroom.”

“It’s going to be disconnected from the building we’re in today,” he said. “It will be located out front facing the south, and our focus will be around energies. Renewable energies will be the emphasis, and it will be geothermal heated and passively solar heated.

“We also have a car that we built with the students that is designed to run on alcohol, and we want to make our own fuel. We feel this is extremely relevant to the community, just due to the fact there’s two huge ethanol plants down the road. We just lie to give kids those hands on experiences.”

Doug Hartke of the Fox Lake Conservation League was present to express gratitude for a donation of $10,000 that will be utilized for seed harvest efforts.

“We just are in the process of closing on six acres on the Martin County West High School grounds,” he said. “We’re going to do a native seed planting area working with the FFA and biology classes who will grow and retain local eco-type native seeds for planting. Local seed sources do much better in our rich soil, so if we can find native remnants that are still in the county we go pick and replant our seed harvest areas and hopefully expand into having our own seed base to add to additional grasslands and wildlife management areas.”

Finally, another $10,000 was awarded to Youth First in partnership with Project 1590 Kids Just Want to Have Fun for an indoor play area that will be placed at Five Lakes Centre in Fairmont. Ed Willet, who serves on the Project 1590 board of directors, said a goal of $55,000 was recently reached, and equipment has been ordered. The project is expected to be complete in February of this year.

Schmeeckle Foundation trustee Stephen Roesner also spoke, calling for even more collaboration, in order to help the foundation’s funds get distributed in the most helpful manner.

“We want to make everyone realize that this trust is $14 million,” he said. “We have to portion this every year for the next 40 years, and what we’ve shelled out so far has been probably about $80,000 twice per year. We need to do more than that, and one way to do that is get organizations to collaborate with each other.

“We really like the projects you did, but we need to think bigger and collaborate more in order to help us achieve our goal of doing the distribution. So we just want to spur some excitement and passion.”

For more information, visit www.schmeecklefoundation.org

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.65/week.

Subscribe Today