Parts & Crafts fundraising
Cora Vestal
Hello Parts & Crafts community!
First, we want to send a huge thank you! As we come to the end of another year, we are reflecting on Parts and Crafts’ decade+ in operation; each year we’ve seen incredible growth, thanks to our amazing community of kids, parents, community members, volunteers, staff, and Somerville and Greater Boston itself. We are writing today to share a bit of news and ask for some assistance with a project. Namely, we are attempting a relatively big project that badly needs doing- replacing most or all of our current technology including desktop and laptop computers, tablets, sound and video equipment, projectors and other classroom tools, 3D and 2D printers, and more.
As you can probably surmise, this is going to be a costly project. I won’t dive into every number here, but a few key ones are:
- We’re serving over 1100 kids per year across our programs including summer and vacation camps, after school programming, half-day Wednesdays, Saturday open shop, school outreach and partnerships, and our full-time homeschool program; we’re additionally serving older kids and adults through our Fabrication Lab program, Fabville, currently operating out of Argenziano Elementary School while Somerville High School is under construction. Fabville is free to the public.
- Historically we’ve had about a dozen desktop computers in the computer lab in the Kesher building, two at 577, and another two for use in other classroom or administrative spaces. At the moment, all but one of these is an Apple that was donated to us used, and if you can believe it, the “newest” of these is from 2009; all of our Apple desktops are now too old to update the software, and all of them were “education models” with reduced processing capability to start with.
- 2018 was the first year that we surpassed $500,000 in gross support and revenue (non-profits above the 500k mark are required to submit a yearly audited financial statement).
- Estimated cost of technology project: $45,000 to purchase our complete wish list new, but a bare minimum of approximately $20,000 to just replace the desktop computers.
Parts & Crafts prides itself on efficiency and repurposing goods wherever possible. However, at this point, we really feel that in order to best serve our kids and to continue to innovate around STEM specific type programming, we need to provide the most current technology that’s reasonably possible. We realize we have been able to sustain our programs thanks in majority part due to donation. We enjoy the benefit of material donations from all over the greater Boston area. While we would happily take any second hand technology donations, we do feel that we can best maintain the standards of Parts & Crafts by acquiring new or close to new technology.
Here are some ways that you could help us out in this endeavor:
- Grant funding: Perhaps the biggest part of this project is that we will seek a grant to fund most or all of our tech needs. This will likely take a great deal of mostly volunteer time and energy and as is always the case, we can never be certain how successful it may be. We’ve pinpointed quite a few corporate or foundation grants that may be a good fit, but we are interested to know whether you have other ideas. Do you work somewhere that gives grants to non-profit or educational organizations or otherwise know of a grant we should apply for? Please let us know!
- Financial donations and matching funds: In addition to material donations, we also rely tremendously on cash donations from the community. Did you know many employers have matching donation programs? If you haven’t already, please ask your employer about this, and/or let us know if there is anything we can do to facilitate setting this up. For this particular project, because it’s looking like we’ll need a significant amount of cash resources, donations and matching funds could be the difference in us figuring out how to accomplish this big task. Certainly grant funding is our first hope, but it is very possible that may not give us any or all of what we need. We super appreciate your consideration, and hate to ask. Remember, as a 501(c)(3), donations are tax deductible!
- Amazon Smile: If you are shopping for the holidays or anything else on Amazon, we’d love it if you’d opt to use our Amazon Smile account. Smile automatically contributes a portion of all purchases to us. To set it up, head over to http://smile.amazon.com, select “pick your own charitable organization”, and search for Parts & Crafts. Then every time you use Amazon, please continue to go to the smile link. After your initial selection, while it will remember the organization you select, *it will not automatically donate unless you go to the smile link*. You can create a bookmark that will always direct you there.
- Local fundraisers: we are having a few local fundraisers in the coming months including our super fun Lightsaber builds. This type of fundraisers are great for outreach and are the most fun of the raisers. To help us with them, it would be great if you would signal boost to get the word out, attend, or even have your kids contribute by making items that can be sold at a table in the front of our 577 Somerville Ave space and/or at offsite fundraisers. Stay tuned for info about a Lightsaber build at Aeronaut, likely in January. The first of these, however, will be THIS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2019, 12PM-3PM at our 577 Somerville Ave space. Come in and build a Lightsaber, or take home a kit to do later or as a gift for the Star Wars fan in your life- it’s perfect for all ages, and definitely a crowd pleaser. The kits are $30 each, and all proceeds benefit Parts & Crafts directly. The flyer for this event is below, and attached as a PDF. Please join us and share this info with everyone you can!
If you have thoughts about this project, questions, or any ideas to contribute, please feel free to reply directly to this email, drop by, or give us a call at (617) 207-8016. We could use all hands on deck for this important task, and thank you in advance for all of your support. We feel privileged to work for and in such a supportive wider community, and hope you and all of yours enjoy a great end of 2019.
Thank you!
Cora Vestal
Parts and Crafts
577 Somerville Ave
Somerville, MA 02143
cell: (617) 429-4084
