Woodrow Wilson High school science teacher Tonya Tovar went before the school centered education committee last fall with a simple message: Woodrow’s science department needs help.
Over the years, the department suffered from the strain of a tight district budget, and students and teachers were paying the price.
Teachers were frustrated by the lack of attention given to maintaining the department. And students, who were attempting to perform experiments with outdated equipment, were being unintentionally cheated.
This time, Tovar’s words didn’t fall on deaf ears. On the day of the school’s annual holiday concert, three neighborhood parents who attended the meeting – Janell Dunsworth, Trish Willingham and Jan Worrall – decided to do something.
Inspired by the holiday season, Dunsworth suggested the women assemble an “angel tree” with science department needs written on cut-out candy cane and star ornaments. By the time the 6 p.m. concert rolled around, the tree was set up in the lobby, decorated with stars and candy canes that had things like “microscope” and “beaker” written on them.
That spur-of-the-moment angel tree raised about $2,000 for Woodrow’s science department. One month later, the science department was again in the spotlight when the Advocate published a cover story about the school. Once again, our neighborhood responded.
Several J.L. Long Middle School parents, whose children would soon be attending Woodrow, decided to join ranks with Woodrow parents. “The Advocate article was a wake-up call,” says parent Marian Richmond, whose daughter is now a freshman at Woodrow. Nancy Montgomery was another J.L. Long parent determined to take up the fight. “Woodrow has a long history of excellent students, excellent faculty and excellent community support,” says Montgomery, a Woodrow alumna. “We wanted to do what we could do. We all understand the benefit of a good public school, whether we use it or not. “There was really a feeling of doing it for all the children, not just our’s or our neighbors’.”
A mailing list of Woodrow alumni and community supporters was compiled, and a massive fund-raising campaign was begun.
And one by one, donations rolled in.
Advocate readers mailed in more than $22,000 in Minyard’s receipts, which were turned over to Tovar to help acquire additional equipment.
The Park Cities Rotary Club presented the science department with a $3,000 check. Woodrow alumnus Trammell Crow responded with a hand-written letter of support and a generous donation. The Lakewood Service League donated $2,600 for new computers.
By September, the science department had received an eye-popping $17,127 and celebrated with a science lab open house presented by the teachers.
“I was amazed at how much money they were able to raise in such a short period of time,” says Renee McKnight, Woodrow’s science department chairman.
“It’s hard to explain what all they’ve done. It was very encouraging to see that kind of support from the community.”
The Advocate can’t assemble an angel tree for every neighborhood school. But we’ve tried to do the next best thing: We’ve compiled a list of schools and their wish lists, and we’re publishing those lists this month.
Maybe you live down the street from one of these schools, and you can donate something that just happens to be on the school’s wish list.
Maybe you’re a long-ago graduate of one of these schools, and you’d like to help today’s students get the same head-start on life you were given.
Or maybe you’re a neighborhood resident with no particular ties to any of these schools, but in the spirit of the holiday season, you’d still like to help.
Here’s our chance to give a year-round gift to neighborhood children that will keep on giving long after the holiday ornaments are taken down and the final college bowl game has been completed.
We’ve seen the difference a few angels among us have made at Woodrow. Wouldn’t you like to be more than an observer of the holiday spirit this year?
