A core belief of CEEF's Board of Directors is that local education foundations provide the best possibility of improving our schools. While every community will have a different variation on the theme, community partnerships will form to provide substantial funds toward fostering the concept that students and teachers are valued and their work must be supported by all of us.

To that end, our Board has been a leader in reaching out to other Maine communities interested in starting foundations. The graphic (right) illustrates some of the towns and districts that we have spoken with about our experiences. As current political and budgetary climates continue to evolve throughout Maine, local interest in educational foundations is growing, and CEEF plans to continue helping committed, energized communities launch their own education foundations.

While CEEF has been very active in sharing our knowledge and experience with other districts, we have also begun to learn a great deal from the successes of other foundations. In the past year, meetings with foundation leaders from California, Connecticut, Florida and, closer to home, Oxford Hills, have generated tremendous energy and new ideas for the Board to pursue. The meetings have also solidified our confidence and pride in being a grass-roots organization built with the ideas and energy of the town's own families. One of CEEF's founding Board Members, Gail Rice, has concluded from her involvement in many of these meetings that, "We are more than a funding organization. We've formed a strong partnership with our school district and are continually building a community that supports public education. Gail continues, "Our town's value of the work of our teachers, staff and students is creating a wave of enthusiasm for our schools that I hope will spread to other communities throughout the State."

In 2007 and beyond, CEEF plans to sponsor workshops with existing foundations as well as host a "Foundation 101" conference with interested communities from all parts of Maine. We will continue to share our success story with other towns, highlighting the great benefits to creating a community foundation from the ground up. CEEF will also begin to publish an on-line newsletter discussing our story and also soliciting feedback and ideas. Today CEEF is a leading education foundation in Maine, but hopes to reap rewards from the successes of other foundations throughout the state.