Stewardship and Community A Quaker foundation for difficult times
For more than five decades, Carolina Friends School has weathered many crises, from the bombing of the newly built Lower School by those against integration to gas shortages and financial recessions. Thanks to the support of our community members and careful stewardship of our resources, we have built a sustainable school animated by our Quaker values. In recent years, we have been fully enrolled, with increasing interest — for the coming school year, we have had a record number of new student applications. Our community has also strengthened our sustainability through building our endowments. While there is still much work to be done to continue to build on these efforts, they have helped situate us to weather this crisis. We are so grateful for this firm foundation, even as the current pandemic has stoked economic concerns throughout the country and within our learning community. Many of our families have experienced or anticipate financial hardship as well as significant uncertainty about the future. In addition to providing tuition payment flexibility, this spring the Board of Trustees spear-headed a new emergency tuition relief fund. With a first round of applicants 12
We & Thee | Summer 2020
this spring, fundraising for emergency tuition relief and the many other COVID-19 related expenses is being designed to support multiple school years, as the financial impacts related to COVID-19 become known. During the last economic recession, a similar effort was organized to prevent financial concerns from dictating whether or not families could remain in our community. Over three years, sufficient funds were raised to meet that goal, and we were able to retain nearly all of our families, a seemingly herculean feat. While we are still discerning the full extent of needs that the COVID19 Emergency Relief Fundraising Campaign will be called upon to support, the current estimate falls somewhere between $1.5 and $2 million. Mark and Cindy Kuhn, the campaign’s co-chairs, aim to complete this fundraising effort in the coming year to support a three-year program of related expenditures. Even as they face difficult health-related decisions for the coming school year, our commitment to support current families has enabled us to maintain healthy enrollment and community retention. While tuition is our greatest revenue source, we also rely on revenue from Extended Learning pro-
Resources for Parenting and Living with COVID-19 Links to each of these resources may be found at cfsnc.org/ coronavirusresources NPR Life Kit Podcast: “5 Ways to Prevent and Prepare for the Coronavirus” New York Times: “How to Talk to Kids About Coronavirus” Betsy Brown Braun: “Talking to Kids About the Coronavirus” Psychology Today: “How to Talk with Your Anxious Child about the Coronavirus” Common Sense Media: “Resources for Families During the Coronavirus Pandemic” Mindful.org: “3 Simple Steps to Stop Mental Time Traveling” Action for Happiness: A website committed to building a happier and more caring society Down Dog: Free beginner yoga app On Being: Curated media list “For the Exhausted and Overwhelmed” Teaching Tolerance: “Speaking Up Against Racism Around the New Coronavirus” Code Switch Podcast: “When Fear Of The Coronavirus Turns Into Racism And Xenophobia”
