One-night fundraiser brings in nearly $2,000 for Education Foundation

By LYNETTE SOWELL
Cove Leader-Press 

It took only one name for create a line at a Copperas Cove Education Foundation fundraiser on Thursday night: Kendra Scott. 
The CCEF held a Kendra Scott Designs jewelry pop-up sale on Thursday evening at Unwind! in the Frontier Hills Shopping Center. Although it was scheduled from 6-8 p.m., the volunteers helping customers didn’t finish until after 9:30 p.m. 
Unwind! had snacks on hand for shoppers, with a line extending through the party room to the front of the restaurant. Along one side of the room, long tables had been placed end to end and were filled with all kinds of jewelry, from bracelets to earrings and necklaces and more. Some shoppers had placed orders ahead of time and had come to simply pick up their orders, and others came to see what the dealer had to offer. 
The Kendra Scott Designs dealer holding the pop-up sale donated 20 percent of the night’s proceeds, or $1,961.15, to the foundation, according to Etta Kay Kirkpatrick, CCEF president. 
She described the marketing and publicity efforts of the CCEF committee that drew a crowd for the event. 
“Karen Harrison, chairman of the development committee, made the initial contact with Kendra Scott. Following the initial planning, Karin Stephens, our part-time assistant at the CCISD central office, coordinated with the people from Kendra Scott and kept the event front and center on social media, handled the preorders and made sure everything we needed to provide got to Unwind!,” Kirkpatrick said. 
A total of nine CCEF board members helped at the event itself, she added. 
Kirkpatrick and her fellow volunteers especially thanked Alicia and Conrad Menard and the staff of Unwind! bistro and tasting room for contributing to the event’s success.
“We would like to thank everyone at Unwind! for their great support,” Kirkpatrick said. “They provided a continuous flow of food for the event and couldn’t have been more gracious.”
The CCEF has had its annual fundraiser, the Boots and Buckles Gala, held every spring, which raises funds for educational grants to CCISD teachers. This type of a fundraiser was a first for them. 
“Not knowing what the response would be to the event we haven’t talked about future events, but considering the crowd I think we might want to consider an annual event,” Kirkpatrick said, adding that it’s a decision that would be made by the board.
Since 2008, the CCEF has awarded $270,043 in grants to CCISD teachers, with 31 educators at nine campuses receiving a total of $38,494 grants in 2016. The 2017 grant awards will be coming up this fall, and the date is being kept tightly under wraps until the “prize patrol” surprises teachers and presents checks to them with cheering and silly-string while making the rounds to classrooms.
Teaching grant recipients submit proposals to the foundation during the application time period and spend their funds on innovative classroom ideas and programs that directly impact students.
“We hope to award around $40,000 in grants this year,” Kirkpatrick said.