VOORHEESVILLE — Since its inception in 1999, the Voorheesville Community and School Foundation has helped fund and fundraise for projects as varied as the new playground at Voorheesville Elementary School, the moving of the Hilton Barn, new radio equipment for local fire departments, a snow-making machine for the meteorology class at Voorheesville’s high school, and multiple projects along the Albany County Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail.

The diverse group of beneficiaries speaks to the organization’s broad mission: “To provide education, cultural, athletic, and organizational opportunities not only to students but to the community that lives within the bounds of the Voorheesville Central School District,” Janna Shillinglaw, president of the Voorheesville Community and School Foundation, told The Enterprise.

Now, with its latest initiative, the “Big Idea Competition,” the foundation is actively looking for even more projects to fund. The competition is open to students, teachers, community members, and organizations. 

The foundation is looking for proposals that would have a wide-scale impact, Shillinglaw said, which could mean a project that would benefit a lot of people or have a lasting impact on the community — whether it be a permanent structure or a program that serves many in the area. 

Applications are available at the foundation’s website: www.vcsfoundation.com, and may be submitted from Sept. 3 through Oct. 1. Proposals, according to the organization, “must fit within our mission and VCSF bylaws dictate that funding and support serve the Voorheesville Central School District, the Town of New Scotland, the Village of Voorheesville, the Voorheesville Library, and local nonprofit entities. 

“Cash awards and support cannot be made to individuals or for-profit entities, nor for profit-making purposes.”

Shillinglaw said that the foundation is looking to fund two types of “ideas”: “Big Ideas,” which are projects over $1,000, and “Little Big Ideas,” which are projects that would cost under $1,000. 

One recent example of a “Big Idea” that Shillinglaw highlighted was the new quarter-of-a-million dollar playground at Voorheesville Elementary School, which was the brainchild of a child, Ellie Chismark, who is now a fifth-grader at the school. The community and school foundation assisted not only with a $26,600 grant for the new playground but also assisted with fundraising for the project.

“We want students and community members to know that their ideas can become reality,” Shillinglaw wrote in an email to The Enterprise, “just like it did for Ellie.”

She also highlighted a “Little Big Idea” that was recently funded at Clayton A. Bouton High School, a snow-making machine. Rather than having to wait for the white stuff to fall from the sky so that they could study it, students in the high school’s meteorology class wanted to purchase a snow-making machine to study snow when it wasn’t winter. With a grant from the foundation, that’s now possible. 

In nearly two decades of existence, the Voorheesville Community and School Foundation has made grants totaling over $200,000, said Shillinglaw, who was invited to join the foundation’s board in 2011. “After learning all the different things [the foundation] did and does from the community and school, I just couldn’t say no,” she said.

Shillinglaw was just elected the organization’s president in June, after serving as its vice president for two years. 

As for the organization itself, she writes, “The Foundation was formed by a group of dedicated Voorheesville citizens who recognized a need for a source of grant funding for the Voorheesville Central School District and surrounding community. Its early support came from the Community Foundation for the Capital Region.”

Today, the Voorheesville Community and School Foundation receives a large portion of its support through its annual fundraiser, which was held in June at Indian Ladder Farms.

Smaller fundraising events are held throughout the year. For example, on Sept. 14, the organization is holding a new event at the Voorheesville firehouse, a “Big Trucks Day” fundraiser, where community members can come to see big trucks from the town and village, and, obviously, the Voorheesville Fire Department.