Five Questions With: Keith Tavares

Keith Tavares is in his second year as president of the Newport Public Education Foundation and his fourth year as a trustee.
Keith Tavares is in his second year as president of the Newport Public Education Foundation and his fourth year as a trustee.

Keith Tavares is in his second year as president of the Newport Public Education Foundation and his fourth year as a trustee. He is also vice president of institutional advancement at Child & Family, Newport County’s oldest and largest social service provider. A Newport native, he is on the Newport County Chamber of Commerce board of directors, is chairman of the Newport Partnership for Families and a new member of the Alliance for a Livable Newport’s board of directors. Here he explains the focus of the Newport Public Education Foundation.

PBN: Define the strategic direction of the Newport Public Education Foundation and how it fulfills the nonprofit’s mission.
TAVARES:
The mission of the Newport Public Education Foundation is to improve the performance of Newport public school children by enhancing their educational opportunities and by building broad-based community support for quality public education.
Shortly after I became president of the foundation, the other board of trustee members and I had a strategic planning session. We laid out plans to help enhance the important work that takes place in our schools, and to help increase visibility for Newport public schools and its many successes. It is a terrific school system that plays a vital role in the lives of children and teens each and every day through excellent teaching, classroom experiences for students and much more. The Newport Public Education Foundation provides important grant funding for unique student experiences both in the classroom and throughout the community.

PBN: As president of the organization, what are your goals for the coming year and beyond?
TAVARES:
My goals are to increase visibility for the foundation in two ways: first, to increase community visibility and awareness of the foundation, and how it provides important funding for unique classroom experiences and projects for students in all three Newport public schools. The second goal is to increase funding for foundation scholarships on a competitive basis for graduating seniors. We recently increased the amount of funds for scholarships with the hope of either funding more than one scholarship applicant or increasing the amount of the scholarship money awarded.

PBN: Your biggest fundraiser, Newport Night Run, is coming up in April. How much are you targeting to raise and what will the money go toward?
TAVARES:
We are excited to hold our third annual Newport Night Run Friday, April 1. It is a great event that attracts runners from all over New England. It is unique because it takes place in the early evening, which is the opposite of most fundraising runs. We expect to have between 400 to 600 runners register. The route is also unique, as it starts and ends at Rogers High School and a portion of the route is on beautiful Ocean Drive. We hope to raise close to $10,000 through registration and sponsorships. It is a terrific and fun event for families and individual runners. The money raised from the event will go right into the foundation’s budget to support grants and scholarships for next year.

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PBN: As a grant funder, who are your beneficiaries and about how much in grants do you award annually?
TAVARES:
This past year, we funded 18 school enrichment proposals from teachers and school administrators, and an additional three community grant proposals from community organizations that partner with Newport public schools to provide both inside-the-classroom and outside-the-classroom experiences for students.
Community grant beneficiaries included Aquidneck Collaborative for Education for its March into Reading program; Friends of Ballard Park for its proposed student assessment of the native and non-native plant species in Ballard Park; and the Newport Restoration Foundation for its Rough Point Art Education Collaboration program.
In addition to providing grant and scholarship funding, the Newport Public Education Foundation is also responsible for overseeing the endowed Technology Fund for Thompson Middle School. This past January, we funded the purchase of Dell Chromebook laptop computers for fifth-graders. Between grant proposals, technology funding and scholarships, the Newport Public Education Foundation has provided more than $40,000 to support Newport public schools over the past six months.

PBN: What is your most effective program and why?
TAVARES:
In addition to our grant and scholarship funding, our most effective program is “Evening for Education,” which is a benefit event to raise funds for the foundation. It is scheduled for June 10 at the Edward King House in Newport. It brings the community of Newport together in support of our schools. We utilize the event to share the many ways in which foundation funds support classroom learning and positively impact student experiences. In addition, we take the opportunity to publicly honor those who truly make a difference in Newport public schools by presenting the Noreen Stoner Drexel Awards in three categories: Friend in Education, Partner in Education and Unsung Hero. The recipients are always incredibly deserving.

CAPTION: Kristine Christensen, left, and Pierson Booher, both employees of Durkee, Brown, Viveiros & Werenfels Architects of Providence, build the indoor seawall for the sculpture “Turning the Tides On Hunger” with their teammates. The event March 12 involved six teams and took place at the Providence Place Skybridge Concourse during Canstruction Build Day to collect canned food for the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.

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