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Glendale Education Foundation adds board members

COALPORT — In his beginning remarks, Glendale Education Foundation president Rick Holes spoke to the board of directors at the Sept. 27 meeting, that, as they begin their 18th year of operation, the organization has grown so much not only monetarily — but especially in continuing the positive impact on the Glendale students and staff.

“We’ve made adaptations to our allocations and have tried to revamp projects to how best to improve and enhance the students of the district,” Holes said.

One of the first items on the agenda involved voting to revise and reword the Glendale Education Foundation Bylaws to increase the number of board directors from nine to 11 — reflecting the need for more personnel to handle the augmented work and development of potential new committees.

As recommended by the executive committee, two candidates who bring a lot of experience, unique expertise and community leadership — Patty Kimberly and Kelsey Troxell — were unanimously elected to fill these new posts.

Acknowledging there’s sometimes a hardship for high school students to pay for the “dual enrollment” classes at Glendale for credit (from Penn Highlands Community College), the board voted to budget $4,000 currently to reimburse students who take any of the five full-time or semester courses.

Students need to enroll in the course for credit at PHCC, sign the GEF student contract, pass the course and make a request for reimbursement within 10 days of finishing the course satisfactorily. In a related move, the foundation ratified a similar reimbursement to repay students who sign up to take the final exams for Advanced Placement classes held at Glendale High School — which can also earn them college credit.

The board passed the motion to donate $1,000 to the Dr. Edward B. Turchick Memorial Scholarship to match funding from an anonymous donor, making this as not only one of the more lucrative scholarships at now $2,000, but it should consequently increase the numbers of quality community/school projects from student applicants that is the main criteria of this award.

In addition, the foundation board voted to gratefully accept two more $500 scholarships (for students intending to matriculate to trade/technical schools) into their repository: The Mike and Linda Sukala Scholarship and The Tradesman Scholarship.

In other news, the board:

n voted to revamp their junior high Viking Achievement Awards by dropping the award for perfect attendance, and increasing the amounts of cash awards to $200 for student winners of Highest GPA, Most Community Service Awards and those individuals named Most Improved Students as nominated by their teachers.

n agreed to award the new one-time $1,000 Charles Glasgow Memorial Award to be bestowed to a senior Glendale student also enrolled at the Greater Altoona Career and Technology Center.

n funded The Dictionary Project for 50 third-grade students again this school year.

n learned that the members of the scholarship committee has already visited the high school twice to work with the 12th grade students using the popular new online application process.

n announced that this year’s Winter WineFest III foundation fundraiser will be held Saturday, Feb. 12, at the Glendale Fire Company’s social hall in two sessions: noon to 1:30 p.m. and 2 to 3:30 p.m. Five wineries and four vendors have already signed up to be there. Tickets are still $15 per session for the wine tasting, with a large basket raffle as well as 50/50 chances for sale.

The next meeting of the Glendale Education Foundation board of directors is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 25, at Josie’s Family Restaurant.

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