Donor and challenge grant aid Friends Campaign

Intermountain Catholic

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The Madeleine Choir School kindergarten students sing happy birthday to their new playground equipment and then enjoy a popcicle. Their favorite is the whale, followed by the teeter-totter, sea saw, and slide. Kindergarten teacher Jamie Kmetzsch (right) and teacher aid Candace deWaal, enjoy the kids excitement about the new playground.IC photo by Christine Young

SALT LAKE CITY — "Happy Birthday to our playground," sang The Madeleine Choir School kindergarten class as they celebrated their new playground equipment April 20.

"Kindergartners, what an exciting day for you," said Christina Vierra-McGill, principal of The Madeleine Choir School. "We are so grateful today to our anonymous donor who made this possible. Did you know there is someone looking out for the Madeleine Choir School, and you all benefit from that with this beautiful playground."

The children in unison gave a big "Thank You," to the donor.

"The creative challenge grant helped boost The Madeleine Choir School’s annual Friends Campaign this year," said Joanna Wheelton, Madeleine Choir School director of advancement. "We made the presentation that if we were to get 80 families involved in our Friends Campaign, that we would be able to do a new kindergarten playground.

"Our Friends Campaign is our annual campaign, and our goal this year was $250,000," said Wheelton. "We were very successful. We brought in more than 90 families, so we far exceeded our goal. We are very excited about it."

"It is the highest goal of our annual giving we have ever had," said Vierra-McGill.

"Even in our economic down turn," added Wheelton.

"And that is all under Joanna’s leadership, and we are grateful for her work," said Vierra-McGill.

"The anonymous donor was really interested in the kindergarten because it was also to honor Jamie Kmetzsch, our kindergarten teacher," said Wheelton. "She does a really good job and the kindergarten families really appreciate her."

Wheelton said in an effort to increase Choir School family support of the Friends Campaign, a creative donor offered to provide a new kindergarten playground as a challenge grant. This incentive was enough to increase family support of the Friends Campaign by 66 percent. Having reached the goal, the Choir School installed the new playground over the Easter spring break just in time for a spring unveiling for the kindergarten class.

Vierra-McGill said, "We are so grateful for this gift and new play space for our students. More importantly, though, we are grateful for the creative way we were able to leverage this gift to bring in even more support for our school."

Wheelton said The Madeleine Choir School also opened its completely renovated computer lab earlier this year with 30 new iMac computers and a brand new server. The lab was the result of a very generous $50,000 anonymous gift received in late 2007.

The donor was interested in providing something that would be available to all students on campus and would have an educational component. The old computer lab used computers that predated the Choir School’s move to their current campus in 2002.

Upon entering the new lab, one student said, "Wow! I could get used to this." Another said simply, "This is beautiful."

The students immediately sat down and started playing with iPhoto, Garage Band, Chess and even reading about current news on the internet, even as the new lab was being dedicated by Msgr. Joseph Mayo, pastor of the Cathedral of the Madeleine.

The Choir School will utilize the new lab with classes or lab sessions for all students, pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.