Patricia Anderson, assistant director for the Center for Educational Partnerships, will once again lead an annual service project for the Western Association of College & University Business Officers (WACUBO) Annual Conference.
As part of her responsibilities, Anderson identifies and adopts an underserved elementary school in the community where the WACUBO conference is held. The goal of the service project is to raise $10,000 in school supplies and basic needs supplies for the adopted school.
The school that will be supported this year is Fairview Elementary in Anchorage, Alaska.
Fairview Elementary is located on the eastern edge of a low-income area of downtown Anchorage, Alaska. It is a diverse school community with 363 Pre-K to sixth-grade students enrolled. Approximately 91 percent of families qualify for free-reduced lunch.
COVID-19 continues to create financial challenges for Fairview’s students; many students have family who work in the foodservice and hospitality industry, and tourism to Anchorage has been very limited and many restaurants remain closed.
Fairview also services a large number of Somali refugee children whose families speak very limited English. Fairview is located in a transient area where approximately 20 percent of its students are new each year. More than 90 percent of its students are from minority ethnic groups, and there are more than 20 different home languages spoken amongst the student body.
Due to COVID -19, the annual WACUBO conference will be held virtually in 2021. The conference will be held from May 24-26, 2021. To register, please visit WACUBO 2021 Virtual Annual Conference Registration.
If you or your organization are interested in contributing to this service-learning project, you can access the Fairview Amazon Wishlist here: bit.ly/wacubo
Anderson also served as WACUBO service project lead in 2019, when she helped raised more than $10,000 for a group of Vancouver-area schools.