Roswell North Foundation Receives Grant For Outdoor Classroom

ROSWELL, GA — The Annual Roswell Wine Festival has a history of sharing its success with local charities, offering them a portion of the sold-out event’s profits. This year, the Roswell North Elementary Foundation (RNEF), a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to enriching the academic experience of students at Roswell North Elementary (RNE), was the featured beneficiary, receiving a $10,000 grant and the opportunity to host the “Wine Pull” at the festival. The money will be used to fund an outdoor classroom.

Roswell North parents and local businesses donated more than 200 bottles of highly-rated wine for the Wine Pull. Patrons gave a donation of $25 for the chance to “pull” a random bottle from the collection. Foundation board members and RNE science and garden teacher Liz Rains staffed the Wine Pull to raise an additional $3,850 for the outdoor learning initiative, which has an estimated total cost of $40,000.

The Roswell Wine Festival selected the Roswell North Elementary Foundation as the beneficiary, in part because of the work teacher Liz Rains is doing with students in the garden. Students at every grade level spend time with Rains learning to plant, nurture, and harvest vegetables in the garden. She then teaches them to prepare the vegetables in the Chef’s Lab, an extension of the Licata Science Lab. Both labs and the garden are 100 percent funded by donations to RNEF.

“Students today are so plugged into technology and it offers a wealth of resources. But, at the same time, it's important to also offer students rich, tactile experiences where they can get their hands dirty and explore,” explained a spokesperson for the Roswell Wine Festival on their Facebook page. “We're thrilled to partner with the Roswell North Elementary Foundation who will be using our funds to build a new outdoor classroom at the school. This will complement the outdoor gardening already in place at the school. The school is doing wonderful things for our children and our community, and we're really proud to support them this year.”

RNEF President Lyndsay Slocum is thrilled to accept the grant on behalf of the RNE Foundation. “We are delighted to be selected as this year’s beneficiary and are so grateful to the Roswell Wine Festival for their generosity,” Slocum said. “The outdoor classroom has long been a dream of students and teachers alike, and without this substantial donation, it would still be a distant vision.”

The Roswell North Elementary Foundation is the sole source of funding for the Licata Science Lab, Life Science Extension (Chef’s Lab), and the RNE Garden - including the salary of full-time teacher Liz Rains. RNEF raised more than $130,000 during the 2018-2019 school year, a record amount for the school. All categories of giving broke records, including family giving and staff giving. Thanks to a new business sponsorship program, RNEF welcomed 12 new business partners. They also raised $6,720.47 through company match programs.

Business owners should go to https://rnefoundation.com/sponsors/ to learn more about the benefits of sponsorship and sponsorship levels, beginning at $500.

The Roswell North Elementary Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization formed in 2009 to enrich and support the academic experience of the students at Roswell North Elementary School. Since inception, the foundation has raised over $500,000. The Foundation annually funds all the costs of the Licata Science Lab, one of only two elementary school-level science labs in North Fulton County as well as additional programs, improvements, or initiatives consistent with the school’s strategic plan. For more information, visit https://rnefoundation.com/.