Six GHS students receive another $6,000 in scholarships
Garretson non-profits and Garretson High School seniors were the recipients of $23,000 in grant and scholarship funding last week Thursday, when the Prairie Rose Community Fund awarded its annual funds.
For the past eleven years, the Prairie Rose Wind Farm has been generously donating $40,000 per year to non-profits located in the townships of Highland, Brandon, Logan, and Edison, which encompasses Brandon, Garretson, and Dell Rapids. The initiative has donated $480,079 so far, and is slated to continue until 2034.
The Prairie Rose Community Fund is headed by a board comprised of township residents, including Steve Howe, Angela Bly, Wayne Liester, Tom Elverson, Tom Brown, John Richard Weir, Dale Zweep, Mike Siemonsma and Steven Munk.
“It is truly a pleasure for the board to be able provide these funds to our communities for education, community enhancement and safety,” said Board President Steven Munk.
Grant recipients must be a non-profit that is located in or serves residents of the listed townships, and in the past has been generous funders of Blue Dragon Academy (Garretson Childcare Corporation), Blue Dragon Foundation, Grow Garretson (now Garretson Economic Development), the Garretson Fire Department, and the Garretson Ambulance.
This year, five Garretson non-profits received a combined total of $17,000. Munk pointed out they had received requests for over $96,000, and they are only allowed to give out $40,000, which made their decisions difficult.
"We wish we could give out [more], but we certainly appreciate the requests that do come in and try to accommodate them as best we can," he said.
The remaining $16,500 of the $39,500 granted went to non-profits in Brandon, Corson, and Dell Rapids. Those included the Mighty Corson Art Players, the Brandon Valley Robotics Team, the Brandon Valley HOPE Squad, the Brandon Valley Band Parents, Brandon Valley Scout Troop 212, Brandon Fire Department, and the Dell Rapids Fire Department.
The Garretson Volunteer Fire Department was granted $3000 towards the purchase of a new SCB air bottle filler.
An SCB is a self-contained breathing unit, and the filler will allow the department to be self-reliant.
"What we're using this money for is a new cascade system," said GFD Chief Tad Heitkamp. "We updated our cascade system, which fills up our air bottles instead of banking on emergency management filling them up on scene with us. Or we can fill them up here, station if we need to. It's a handy piece of equipment that's unfortunately not cheap."
Garretson Middle School teacher Tracy Stallman was on hand to receive a grant on behalf of the Garretson School District. They received $3500 for the purchase of new microscopes for 6th and 7th grade science students.
"Our microscopes that we have in our department right now are, I'm thinking from the '80's or so; older than me by a little bit," said Stallman. "I want to do pond water exploration and blood typing and living and non-living cells and micro microbes and yeast."
The new microscopes will be used primarily in 6th and 7th grade science classes, and contain screens that will allow students to create videos or take pictures of their specimens. However, she stated that it will be shared by the science department as a whole, and the high school students will benefit from the purchase as well.
The Garretson PTO has been raising funds to update and improve the playground equipment for several years now, and the Prairie Rose initiative will help put them over the top for a larger piece of equipment. They received $5500 for the cost of new commercial grade school playground equipment.
"Our biggest undertaking is going to be this summer when we are purchasing the largest piece of equipment that will go into our playground, which is costing us about $80,000," said Parent-Teacher Organization representative Heather Schiltz. They have a fundraising activity this Saturday, April 5, when they are hosting Adult Night Out with Undercover Band, and Schiltz commented that between the grant and the fundraiser, they should be able to fulfill the purchase of the rest of the equipment the PTO is aiming to obtain.
Jerry Scholl accepted $1500 on behalf of the Blue Dragon Foundation, which will use the funds to replace the decking in front of the baseball concession stand. Scholl pointed out that 20 years of cleats will wreck a deck pretty quickly, and they were grateful for the help in purchasing the replacement. In 2024, the Foundation received funds toward the new scoreboard on the field.
The sixth Garretson non-profit to receive funds was the Garretson Community Ambulance, which was granted $3500 to purchase personal reflective taped jackets and jump bags.
"This is when they're out there working and usually, they're not in the most favorable conditions when that happens, especially in inclement weather," said Garretson Ambulance's Gail Nelson. "You want to be able to see them and where they themselves are protected. So, these dollars, $3,500 will go towards reflecting tape jackets and their jump bags so you can see them while they're out there."
She pointed out that the department hasn't ordered new jackets in approximately 40 years, so this purchase is long overdue. The reflective tape will allow them to be easily seen, and the jump bags will be able to be cleaned and sanitized easily so biohazards and germs won't be transported between patients.
The final $6,000 of funding was awarded in the form of scholarships. Students who apply must be residents of the four townships and attending a secondary institution right out of high school, and are awarded based upon grades, volunteer experience, school activities, and work experience. Six $1,000 scholarships went to Tyler Benson, Eliza Potter, Ashley Harris, Isabella Sysa, Lane Ellefson, and Colin Shellum.
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