Cascade K-8 Community School wins $2,000 in national Art Grant contest

Cascade students

Shoreline’s only K-8 school, the Cascade K-8 Community School, recently displayed the power of their strong community when they competed against much larger schools to win $2,000 dollars in Art Education funding. The grant, offered by Kris Wine, was created to help fund programs that engage students in hands on art activities. CK-8 places a big emphasis on Art, and they have an award winning Art teacher and very talented students. When they heard about this grant, they were determined to get it!

CK8 entered the contest, which required folks to vote on Facebook for their school of choice once a day, on October 4th, 2012. The top 16 schools would receive a grant for their Art Department. Schools in places 6-16 would get $1,000, places 2-5 $2,000 and the school with the most votes in first place would receive $5,000.

At first, it seemed very unlikely that CK8 could possibly win, since they have less than 200 students and only 6.5 teachers and were competing against many schools that had over 1,000 students. Amazingly, the “Little School that Could” began to climb the charts!

The small community packed a big punch as folks began sharing and voting on FB daily, and the excitement began to build as they watched their little school climbing up the ladder towards first place. By the time they were in 6th place, it became clear that just voting on FB would not get them the grant money, so a group of parents from the school got together with the PTSA and mailed in paper ballots with multiple votes on them daily. In the end, amazingly, Shoreline’s own K-8 Community school ended up in 3rd place in the national contest! The school was awarded the $2,000, which will go towards providing our lucky students with hands on Art experiences.

The Cascade K-8 Community School may be small, but it boasts a hearty community presence with a strong dedication to building the best possible place for its kids. Banding together to win the Kris Wine Art of Education contest was just one of the ways in which the parents in this school have gone the extra mile for their kids.