| Chris Goudreau
cgoudreau@thereminder.com
Category:
EAST LONGMEADOW – The East Longmeadow Educational Endowment Fund (ELEEF) is hosting its annual winter charity ball on Feb. 11 from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. at Twin Hills Country Club in Longmeadow.
A total of 10 grants amounting to $17,000 will be awarded to local schools during the event.
ELEEF President Dean Dagnoli told Reminder Publications the grants would fund projects such as Amazon Kindle tablets, Soundbeam, an assistive music technology, and a laser cutter for Maker Space.
“In the last couple years one of the big ones was a 3D printer,” he noted. “This year one of the signature grants that we’re doing is a laser cutter for Maker Space. Students will use the cutter to design all sorts of different things for engineering and science.”
This year’s winter charity ball will also feature dinner followed by dancing, he noted. It would also include a DJ and the theme of the event is a “red carpet ball.”
He added, “We’re going to have a red carpet wall, which will feature all the sponsors that supported ELEEF for this event. The sponsors’ logos, individual and corporate logos, will be on the wall.”
“This is our 22nd year,” he stated. “ELEEF was founded in 1995 by a few likeminded people from town that wanted to raise money for the schools and for grant requests over and above what the school budget can cover. [The winter ball] is our signature fundraiser. The past few years we’ve had a dinner dance, a golf tournament … The dinner dance is the signature event and we usually raise about $25,000 per year from the event.”
A live auction would also be featured at the event and would include items such as tickets to sporting events, he said.
In years past, ELEEF has donated grants for stringed instruments to schools in East Longmeadow, Dagnoli said. East Longmeadow High School jazz and band students will play those instruments during the event’s cocktail hour from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
During the past two decades, ELEEF has raised close to $800,000 and hopes to hit its $1 million goal in the next few years, he said.
“Over the past 22 years we’ve granted out over $350,000,” he noted.
According to information from ELEEF, the criteria for evaluating grant requests are that the project should impact as broad a number of students as possible, the educational enrichment resulting from the grant should be as long lasting as possible, the project would not include the cost of renewable licensing fees, no athletic equipment would be funded, and Superintendent of Schools Gordon Smith is required to sign off on the application.
For more information about ELEEF’s winter charity ball visit www.eleef.org.