March 18, 2009

News Release

Benevolent Teacher Provides a Lesson in Giving

A Tyler ISD teacher used her own classroom experience as an opportunity to help another teacher at a different campus.  Heather Gentry, an art teacher at Bonner Elementary School received a classroom grant from the Tyler ISD Foundation last year for her students to create original pottery bowls for a local charity organization. 

Gentry wrote a grant for money to complete 100 or so clay bowls with her 4^th and 5^th graders.  After going through the clay process, students donated these bowls to Marvin Methodist Church to be sold at their annual Empty Bowls fundraising auction.  The funds raised at the dinner/auction were donated to the East Texas Food Bank, St. Paul Children’s Foundation, and PATH to purchase food for families in need. 

“Our Empty Clay Bowls project completed in the spring of 2008 was particularly relevant to our student population who relies on several community organizations’ outreach services.  Bonner students greatly benefited from participating in a service opportunity that directly impacted their own neighborhood and a better understanding of how individual and group actions improve the community as a whole,” said Gentry. 

“Our grants committee was impressed with this proposal because not only did the grant provide an artistic endeavor, but it provided students with an opportunity to learn the culture of giving to others,” said Larry Goddard, Executive Director of the Tyler ISD Foundation, “But we didn’t expect what happened after the project was finished.”

The bowls were auctioned and money collected.  Rather than keeping the proceeds for her own classroom, Gentry decided to provide the funds to another art teacher at a different campus. 

After the church auction, Gentry sold additional bowls at Bonner to raise enough money for another art teacher to apply for the same grant the following year to go through the whole process all over again.  This year, art teacher, Lisa Larios at Ramey Elementary applied for the grant and is in the process of making, glazing, and firing the bowls with her 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th graders for this year’s Empty Bowls Hunger Relief Dinner and Auction scheduled for Saturday, March 28, 2009, at 6:00 p.m. at Marvin Methodist Church. 

“We look forward to hearing the impact this project has on the students at Ramey Elementary.  The “seed of giving” this project plants will take root in the lives of these children and bloom as they grow and become adults in our community.  We thank the generous supporters of the TISD foundation for this opportunity to offer an enriched learning experience,” said Gentry.
 

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