Just before school let out for the holidays, NENA Director Autumn Street joined Scott Graves of Hyde Park favorites 13th Street Pub & Grill and Parilla to deliver a Christmas miracle: donations totaling $25,000 to our five North End neighborhood public schools.
Boise High received $11,000, and North Junior High, Washington, Lowell, and Longfellow Elementary Schools each received $3,500.
NENA is so proud to partner with our local businesses to provide these well-deserved and much-needed funds to our neighborhood schools. After two cancelled Hyde Park Street Fairs (the main source of NENA’s income), we simply weren’t sure how NENA would cover the 2022 school grants, which are a long-standing tradition for the neighborhood. Autumn started looking at ways to creatively fundraise in support of the 5k in annual grants, and when she approached the partners behind 13th Street & Parilla to see if they’d be willing to help out by selling Hyde Park Street Fair merchandise, they agreed - but not only did they agree, they went way above and beyond, and offered to cover the grants in full so that the schools didn’t miss out.
Then, in an act of generosity that put Santa to shame, they *quintupled* the usual 5k grant amount, ensuring that our neighborhood schools had 25,000 reasons reason to look forward to the new year.
Delivering the checks was one of the more heart-warming tasks Autumn has taken on during her time on the board, and each of the principals was visibly overwhelmed at these surprise gifts. The past two years have been extraordinarily difficult for students, teachers, and administrators, and we very much hope these funds can help alleviate some of that burden in the coming months.
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to the generous individuals behind 13th Street and Parrilla for funding the 2022 NENA School Grants. Neighbors, if you have a chance to stop in to either of these establishments and say thank you in person (and maybe grab dinner!), please do. Our thanks alone could never be enough!