What we fund, and why.

The greenhouse and outdoor learning

Goal $25,000 · Campaign closes December 31, 2026

The children asked for somewhere to grow their own food. The greenhouse gives learners a place to plant, water, measure, observe, and care for what they grow through hands-on experiences.

The structure is portable and owned by the PTO as personal property rather than built into the building. That keeps the asset with the charity that paid for it as a learner-facing resource.

The fund covers the structure, raised beds and soil, irrigation, tools sized for children, seed and seasonal planting, and the shade and outdoor work area around it.

Classroom enrichment

Goal $6,000 · Campaign closes June 30, 2027

The unglamorous fund, and the one guides ask for most. Books, leveled readers, microscopes, math manipulatives, art and music supplies, robotics and building kits, maps, and the consumables that a project-based classroom burns through in a semester.

Requests come from guides, are reviewed by the PTO board, and are purchased by the PTO. This fund supports books, learning tools, science, robotics, art, music, math materials, and other learner-facing resources used in hands-on learning.

Room to run — sports and play

Goal $12,000 · Campaign closes March 31, 2027

This fund covers sports and play equipment, field and games gear, shade and seating for outdoor time, and other resources that support movement and active play.

Like the greenhouse, equipment purchased with this fund is owned by the PTO and remains a PTO resource.

learner leadership and service

Goal $3,000 · Campaign closes June 30, 2027

The least expensive thing we fund and, we think, the most important. This is the Safety Patrol program, which children apply and interview for and hold in rotating assignments. It is the rotating classroom leadership roles. It is the Anchored Times, the newspaper our learners write, edit, and publish themselves. And it is the service work: packing meals at Feed My Starving Children, food drives for Grace Bridge, Coffee with Cops, and the lemonade stand our learners ran on their own initiative for families affected by the Camp Mystic tragedy, giving away every dollar they took in.

The costs are small — transport, materials, badges, printing, project supplies — and the return is a child who has already learned that they are capable of doing something for someone else.

Where we will not spend

The PTO does not pay the school's operating costs. Not payroll, not rent, not utilities, not debt, not building improvements owned by someone else, and not advertising to recruit learners. Those are the school's responsibility and paying them from charitable funds would be both wrong and a risk to our exempt status.

We also do not treat restricted gifts as general funds. If you give to the greenhouse, it buys greenhouse. If a project becomes impossible, we go back to the people who funded it before we do anything else with their money.