Findley a Big Winner Thanks to Principal Charity Classic

Superintendent Tom Ahart and Principal Barb Adams with Findley student at a Principal Charity Classic event at Wakonda.

The Wakonda Club on the south side of Des Moines is only about six miles from Findley Elementary School on the north side. But really the two are worlds apart. Aren’t they?

Wakonda is a bastion of the well-heeled. Most of Findley’s students live in poverty. Besides education they get free breakfast and lunch at school.

But on Monday Findley Principal Barb Adams and a dozen of her students went to lunch as invited guests at Wakonda.

The occasion was a luncheon to disclose the official total raised for community children’s charities by the 2014 Principal Charity Classic (PCC), a Champions Tour professional golf event hosted by Wakonda last spring. More than $1.3 million was generated for the tournament’s designated benefactors, one of which is Findley where a hefty donation will help remove the longstanding barriers between at-risk kids and post-secondary education.

Heather Isaacson of the I Have a Dream Foundation has been added to the fulltime staff at Findley to coordinate the school’s official Dreamer Academy.

The foundation works with disadvantaged students to get them college-ready by inspiring them to dream and set goals for their futures. “Dreamer” students graduate at a rate of more than 95%.

“It’s a big job to clear the obstacles out of these kids’ path to college,” she said. “The thing is, everybody at schools already has a job.” She’s right. The teachers are busy teaching. The kids are busy learning. And many times their families need educating, too, about opportunities. Their expectations need to be raised. Language is often one of the barriers.

Isaacson said that one of the things the PCC money will enable is establishment of formal affiliations between Findley and area colleges and universities. She envisions that by the time Findley students move on to middle school they will already have visited several college campuses and gotten used to the notion that they will not only graduate from high school but go on from there to the next level. The academy at Findley is being modeled after a similar one in Portland, OR.

“We ask and expect so much from our schools,” Isaacson said. “But they need partners.”

And that’s where the I Have a Dream Foundation and the Principal Charity Classic, in this case, come in.

When Principal Financial Group CEO Larry Zimpleman rose to reveal the precise numbers at Wakonda Monday he called the Findley contingent up on the dais to help him. Each of them wore a t-shirt with a different number on the front. When he had them all rearranged into their proper slots he spun them around to face the crowd like a living, breathing tote board that read $1,367,749. In return for services rendered they got cheeseburgers, macaroni, cantaloupe and cupcakes – oh, and $100,000.

The golf tournament wound up on June 1, just about the time school was letting out for the summer. On August 25 the big winners were finally announced, just as the new school year begins. To look at them you wouldn’t take them for golf champions. But dreamers; yes, they certainly look capable of big things in that department. They’ve already discovered there is a way from Findley to Wakonda.

Video from the Principal Charity Classic Event

Photos from the Principal Charity Classic Event