The Education Foundation of Sarasota County is making a different in students' lives.  To help students succeed: This is their ultimate objective and both the first and last lines of the Education Foundation of Sarasota County’s story. They begin their story with numbers: The Foundation annually serves nearly 44,000 students and 5,000 instructional staff and support personnel in 53 public schools in Sarasota County Schools district. With the addition of families, employers, and citizens who depend on an educated population, the numbers served reach into many more thousands. Behind these figures are individuals whose unique stories and challenges, along with our community’s particular needs, serve to guide the expanding narrative of the Education Foundation of Sarasota County.

Their narrative started more than 30 years ago when citizen-advocates, representing a cross-sector of Sarasota County leaders, formed a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting and enhancing our district’s public education in recognition that highly effective education and a thriving community are mutually dependent and inextricably linked. The Education Foundation of Sarasota County remains the only organization exclusively dedicated to supporting students and teachers in Sarasota County Schools, and they continue to be governed by a board of citizen-advocates and funded by philanthropist-minded individual donors, corporate partners and foundation partners. Supporters recognize that our students’ personal success and our society’s well-being depend on innovative, educated young people being prepared to solve complex problems in the 21st century. In turn, supporting student success requires that we, as the Foundation, stay focused on seeing students graduate from high school prepared to successfully progress to and through their postsecondary paths, and equipped to flourish in productive careers and nimbly adapt to rapidly changing modes and methodologies.

Make a donation! All donations between $25 and $100 are matched by The Patterson Foundation. Donate here. 

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