William S Hart Education Foundation Wish Education Foundation

Wish has established/funded student wellness centers on all campuses district-wide since 2019. They continue to fund ongoing renewables and resources annually at each center. With some campus centers seeing fully half the student body in a given month as a result of the growing anxiety among students in this age group, these programs provide vital support for this remarkable program that now includes trained peer counselors.

The wellness program expanded to include music as student demand surges; in calendar years 2021 and 2022, support for these programs exceeded $22,000 and included everything from accessories and equipment to musical instruments. It continues expansion into the physical arts and will be aided in the coming year by fundraising event dollars and grants.

Since covid, the number of homeless and displaced students has risen dramatically; nearly 30% of our students are labeled as socioeconomically disadvantaged. Wish has supported these students with basic essentials using raised funding from events and grants in the amount of $40,300 in that time. Covid protocols curtailed fundraising through events (the primary source of funding), so the executive director left the payroll but continued to work as a volunteer in order to continue important programming, some of which could not have been imagined previously. She returned to the payroll at minimum wage once normal fundraising resumed.

Other programs that support the students of the Hart school district.