Why the Cortes Island Academy is a program of the Cortes Foundation

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents -“The Cortes Island Academy is working on becoming its own nonprofit, but right now it actually functions as a program of the Cortes Island Community Foundation. Part of this was because I have had this interest in trying to figure out if we could create a high school pilot program and I work part-time as the Executive Director of the Cortes Island Community Foundation. So there was an obvious link, but it really goes back to the root of why we need a high school program on Cortes,” explained Manda Aufochs Gilliespie.

Cortes Currents: How has the Community Foundation helped out the academy?

Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “The Community Foundation partnered to help raise almost $200,000 for the first year of the Cortes Island Academy. They partnered in writing and then receiving a grant from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). That was a big chunk of what we were able to raise this year.”

“Managing the money of that grant and the dispersion of that money: all happened through the Community Foundation.”

“The Community Foundation also raised money for scholarships and for local facilitators through individual fundraising. So the Mark Torrance Foundation and a number other private donors, some as small as $50, some as large as $5,000.”

“The Community Foundation is a charitable organization. It's able to give a tax receipt for any of the donations and it has to make sure that all the money that it's raised is actually used for its purposes.”

“In this case, one of our purposes is both looking after the educational needs on the island as well as the general wellbeing of Islanders.”

“At the very heart of this is a deep understanding of how much it has harmed our community to not have an option for our students and our families so that they can remain in this community through all stages of life.”

“In fact, when the Cortes Community Economic Development Association did the Local Economic Action Plan, or the leap plan, in 2018, this came out as one of the major gaps to us actually being a full functioning economy on Cortes.”

“Not having a high school is causing many families to leave this community right at the time when their work years are most essential. Their highest earning work years, when they have the most time and energy to give.”

“It's caused major issues in the elementary school where families don't just take their high school kids. They leave and they take all of their kids.”

“It drains out even people without kids, because if you can't run a small business and access employees and skilled labor, etc - you leave.”