The School

[ChrisH]

We are part of a church-based private school. Our two regional championship banners are hanging in the church foyer. You walk right past them to get from the main entrance to the sanctuary. They are mounted over the entrance of the hallway that leads to the bathrooms and are the first thing you see when you walk out of the Children's Church. I can't think of a more central location to display them. Virtually everybody passes by them every time they come to the building.

Most of our mentors are also teachers in the school. Of course, they are also parents of our students. The school is very supportive and families enthusiastically support team fundraisers, etc. Our rooting section includes grandparents and little brothers and sisters, sometimes younger than one year old.

The school itself provides no money, but through church or school connections we have always had a place provided to build the robot at no charge to the team. This year we are returning to the power plant work room we used last year. A man in the congregation whose only child (so far) is around a year old, helped us find it last year. I guess he's really thinking ahead. The school also provides vital accounting and administrative services at no charge. We have access to the church's video editing suite, and if we asked we could probably get the recording studio as well.

We only compete as a school in one sport, robotics. Everybody knows about the team and most of our students are on it at some point in their school career, though some are only on for a year. During build season I spend alot of my time at church giving status reports to people who are interested in the team. Most of whom have no other connection to the team.

With support like that, who needs $$$?

ChrisH