Generous $100k Donation to Fund TCS Program Enrichment!

We're so happy to share that The Children's School recently received a most generous $100,000 donation from alumni grandparents Robert and Fayette Engstrom.

While the funds are unrestricted, the Engstroms expressed interest in supporting an augmented middle-level science program as well as supporting teachers and their programmatic needs.

The Engstrom donation follows on the heels of an incredibly generous year of our community's giving in 2020 through 2021. TCS received $50,000 from an anonymous donor in the spring of 2020 to launch our TCS Families Fund matching challenge. The fund addressed financial hardships for families in our school community during the Covid pandemic. In addition to raising $22k from our families and friends, we also received an additional large gift of $28,000 from another anonymous donor so that we could meet the matching goal.

The generosity of so many givers, both large and small, provided critical funds to keep our TCS community intact during Covid. Donations allowed increased financial aid awards, increased frequency in the cleaning of our facility, and both raises and bonuses for our full-time teachers. We held the goal that no child who wanted to return to TCS would be turned away due to Covid's financial impact on their family. We also wanted to support our teachers during the new challenges they faced and met with such grace and adaptability.

"We are so sincerely and deeply grateful for the amazing and heartfelt support we've received from these families, who placed TCS at the center of their giving during such challenging times," says Pamela Freese, PhD, director of administration for TCS. "Through their gifts, we not only weathered a very rough year but thrived in many ways. We hope that as stewards of the Engstrom's gift, we can grow in new ways that keep our programs academically rich and our education challenging and relevant for the future."