As we spotlight and support our local heroes, we place them in two distinct categories. The first category is for adults, be they teachers, administrators, or staff, performing a social good.
We call them Lumenaries (intentional spelling to match our organization’s name).
Support for Lumenaries may come in the form of financial assistance to further enhance or maintain the project on which they are working, say an after school program for parent education. Support may involve providing supplies a teacher needs to coordinate an after school event for students and families. Help may come through professional development to increase a faculty’s technology skills to improve teaching during remote learning.
The second category is for students, those that go above and beyond the regular school day to take on a passion project that impacts others in need.
We call them SparQs.
These students may be working toward a solution to a local community problem, like food insecurity, or helping to bring awareness to broader societal issues, like systemic racism or gender equality. Support for SparQs may include financial assistance to fill a gap in funding their project, providing materials needed as they engage in their work, or possibly hands-on resources through volunteer support.
We will best understand our heroes’ actual needs as we come to know their story deeply. Through this discovery, the details of their mission come to light, and we can determine our clearest and most effective path to support them. Every story is different, and every need is thereby unique. We remain flexible as an organization to assist these heroes in the most effective manner possible.
In the coming months, the website will have links to our heroes’ stories with pages dedicated to Lumenaries and SparQs. We invite you to learn more about each of these and consider what role you may play in future projects.