Boys and Girls Club expands programs

Thanks to a generous grant from a local family, the Boys and Girls Club of Glacier Country has brand new sewing machines and canning equipment and next year it plans to add a welding and music program.

The club recently received a two-year $50,000 grant for the equipment and it’s part of a broader effort to bring more programs to area youth. The family wished to remain anonymous, Executive Director Cindy Hooker said last week.

The sewing machines and canning equipment will help teach youth how to be more self-sufficient, Hooker said.

The new programs don’t end there, however. Recently the club expanded to serve junior high and high school students.

They’ll now have the opportunity to learn audio and media production. The focus will be photography, creating podcasts, blogs, websites and videos. The audio and visual program will also help build teamwork, reading and writing skills and research skills, among many others, Hooker noted.

The high school students will soon be setting up a booth to sell cotton candy, snow cones and popcorn to raise funds to travel to a destination determined by the students and/or to the Boys and Girls Club National Keystone Conference which is held annually.

The club continues to look for a larger building to host its programs. It’s currently in talks with the School District 6 board on possibly using the old junior high once the new Glacier Gateway School is built.

— Hungry Horse News

The Whitefish School Board officially welcomed Interim Superintendent Dave Means during its July 14 business meeting. Means started on July 1, taking over for previous superintendent Heather Davis Schmidt, who served since 2015.

As Director of Educational Services in his previous position, Means supervised the special education programs and roughly 50 employees for the district, overseeing section 504 plans for students with disabilities, supporting human resources, working on homelessness and mental health services. He has worked for the district for 16 years and in 2018 received the CSPD Leadership Award for Region V in Montana.

Board Chair Katie Clarke said seeing the way Means’ staff praised him for that award said a lot about how he treats his team members, and she’s excited for his leadership moving forward.

— Whitefish Pilot

The Greater Polson Community Foundation recently distributed $53,900 among 18 local nonprofit organizations as part of its 2020 grant cycle. The amount distributed represents the annual earnings from the GPCF’s permanent endowment fund. Gifts and contributions from donors have added significantly to the permanent endowment which totals over $600,000. Only the earnings can be used from the permanent endowment.

Roger Smith, grant chairman, said the 2020 grants will support a wide variety of youth and community-oriented projects including: special needs playground, college opportunities for juniors and seniors, swim lesson scholarships, leadership development programs, spay and neutering program, citizen science programs on the lake, youth sports development, preservation and showcasing of historical data and artifacts, a film festival as well as a series of musical showcases and educational outreach.

Learn more at www.greaterpolsoncommunityfoundation.org or call (406) 883-4723.

— Lake County Leader

For Alberton High School senior Jordan Taapken’s senior project, his idea came to him as a sophomore on a camping trip. He wanted to create a memorial to the men and women who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces.

His father Michael, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, became his partner and mentor. Taapken asked city officials for land for a permanent placement of the memorial.

One of the major requirements of a senior projects is it must be a benefit to the community. Taapken’s plan was a rather enormous task. He and his father built a model as close to scale as possible, then rounded up community support.

“At first, each branch of the service would be represented on their own 4x8 foot piece of granite until we started getting costs,” Taapken said. “The memorial would have been over $50,000, but this way the finished project came in between $10,000 and $15,000. The businesses and people with all of the donations made this happen.”

The memorial is located next to the fire station in Alberton.

Part of the project plan was to ask the town of Alberton participate in the construction process. Flyers were taken door to door with the work schedule asking for anyone who could come and help to just show up and be willing to give them a hand on Friday or Saturday every weekend, not counting Father’s Day weekend, to meet a July 4 deadline.

More than 20 volunteers helped to make the project a reality.

A thank-you section of granite lists the sponsors and at the base of each flagpole is the family who contributed each service flag and the American and POW flags in the center.

Taapken said the city owns the memorial, but he is building a committee to oversee the maintenance and lowering of the American flag to half-staff when it is required.

— Mineral Independent