POTSDAM -- The Potsdam Educational Opportunities Fund (PEOF) raised over $8,000 for school projects that included support for field trips, guest speakers, equipment purchases, including Smartboards and Kindle Fire units; and other innovative program enhancements.

PEOF, which has distributed nearly $20,000 since 2012 in support of projects proposed by Potsdam Central Schools educators to enhance student experiences, funded a range of enriching projects during the 2014-15 academic year which have continued its efforts to enable schools and teachers to meet the needs of students in creative, engaging, and impactful ways.

Many of the teachers whose projects received PEOF support have expressed their appreciation, including the faculty sponsor of the chess group at A.A. Kingston Middle School, noting that students were provided with new equipment to replace sets that were incomplete or broken, and some students who would not have been able to obtain chess sets of their own were enabled to participate fully in the group’s activities.

PEOF support this year made it possible for ninth grade students to experience a visit by Spencer Thew of Call of the Wild Sled Dog Tours, whose presentation, involving a sled dog and dogsled equipment, made the students’ assigned reading experiences on books related to the Arctic and sled dog traditions much more vivid and meaningful.

The Potsdam Educational Opportunities Fund represents the efforts of concerned parents, alumni, and other members of the community. Leveraging a significant matching gift of over $100,000 from an anonymous PCS alumni couple, PEOF partners with the Northern New York Community Foundation to steward its endowed funds, and continues to raise ongoing funding each year, as it annually solicits proposals from PCS teachers and distributes project funding in close collaboration with PCS teachers and administrators.

PEOF is operated through a volunteer Advisory Committee of supporters and community representatives; for more information about the effort, contact Advisory Committee Chair, Devon Shipp (dshipp@clarkson.edu).

To make a donation, earmark gifts for PEOF and send to the NNY Community Foundation at 120 Washington St., Suite 400, Watertown, NY 13601.