BEAUMONT, Texas – After seeing the massive damage incurred by Hurricane Florence last year, Education First Federal Credit Union (EFFCU) announced that their employee donation fund, which typically is directed to a local charity in Southeast Texas, would go to help a school in North Carolina.
After consulting with the Cornerstone Credit Union League, EFFCU said it reached out to Cape Fear Elementary, a school that also incurred extensive damage from Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and had not yet fully recovered when Florence hit the area. Over the last year, Carrie Haskett, director of Community Relations for EFFCU, has been working with Principal David Kirkland to coordinate the restoration of their outdoor classroom.
The outdoor classroom consists of a weather station, learning tables, sandbox, planters, and a mini amphitheater with shade sails overhead. Cape Fear Elementary had been trying to raise funds for the project prior to the storm, but when Hurricane Florence hit it was taken off the table. After learning about its stalled status EFFCU employees pledged the money in their Blue Jean Fridays fund to purchase the shade sails and cover the cost of installation.
The Blue Jean Fridays fund was created in 2015 and is a voluntary program that allows employees to wear blue jeans to work each Friday in exchange for a $3 donation to the fund. At the end of each calendar year a charitable organization is selected to receive the funds as a donation. Traditionally the donation has been made to local organizations in Southeast Texas; however, as a credit union with its roots in education - EFFCU was founded by teachers 67 years ago – it was a natural fit, it said.
“We felt compelled to connect with and assist a school rebound from the destruction that we witnessed ourselves after Hurricane Harvey brought unprecedented flooding and damage to many of our own area schools in September 2017,” EFFCU’s VP of Marketing Carolyn Ridout explained.
Cape Fear Elementary hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony for the completed project and Ridout and Haskett were on site for the ceremony.
“Our entire Cape Fear Elementary School Family is so thankful for the compassion and generosity extended to us by our new friends at Education First Federal Credit Union” said Kirkland. “We will be forever grateful to have been blessed in this way.”
"While today was a great experience at Cape Fear Elementary, it is a little bittersweet knowing that so many of our schools back home were just devastated again last week by flooding as a result of Tropical Storm Imelda,” said Haskett.
In response to the damage incurred at home, EFFCU along with 12News and The Beaumont Enterprise, have partnered together to create the Imelda Educators Relief Fund to assist teachers whose schools were impacted by Tropical Storm Imelda replace basic classroom supplies.