A craft-y fundraiser

Women's Expo helps raise

money for early

childhood

programs

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- What does a program administrator do if the Legislature takes an axe to a particular program, cutting state funds by 20 percent?

If you're Betty Uehling, coordinator of District 88's Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) program, you huddle with an equally creative colleague, in this case Carol Davis, Community Education Coordinator, coming up with a non-invasive plan to raise dollars which not only provides valuable information about the program's benefits but allows people to shop an arts and crafts fair.

We're talking about the first ever Women's Expo and Craft Fair, held at Jefferson Elementary School Saturday morning. As more and more people strolled the vendors' displays, both in the gymnasium and the corridors, Uehling could hardly contain her excitement over the positive reaction to this first-ever effort.

"We wound up with 38 exhibitors; isn't that great?" she asked. "We had exhibitors signing up as late as yesterday. We even had people from the Twin Cities trying to get in; we never expected this kind of response."

As far as the cost for exhibiting in Saturday's event, it probably was one of the best bargains around.

"We decided we would charge (the vendor) $25 for a table, and then the vendors could keep the money they made here.," Uehling explained.

That meant in a period of four hours they'd raised $874 to help ease the pain resulting from the budget cut.

"We'll use the money to buy all the small, necessary items like paper, pencils, glue and all the other items that we need to run our program."

In other words, all the items that teachers often reach into their own pockets to provide in times of scarce money, she acknowledged.

But when $28,000 is pared from a budget of about $140,000, $874 doesn't go very far in trying to reverse the impact of such a budget cut, Uehling said.

"We've had to reduce our sessions to two, nine-week sessions (one in the fall and the other in the spring) instead of the two, ten-week sessions we have had," Uehling explained.

"In addition, the Community Ed program of which we're a part is giving us help, and, of course, there's the United Way which has been a strong supporter over the years. The district and the superintendent also have been very supportive in trying to get us through this," said Uehling who has been the ECFE coordinator for 12 years now.

The only problem there is that is not additional money but the money United Way gives ECFE every year, she noted.

"So, we need to be creative in finding ways to bridge the gap caused by the Legislative action. Also, we're going to be back for the next Legislative session, trying to get those cuts restored," she affirmed.

At the present time, there are 130 youngsters from nearly newborn to four years of age in the ECFE program.

"In addition, we have another 40 in the (companion) At-Risk Child program."

With the exception of Head Start's parent segment, ECFE is only pre-school program which focuses equally upon the parents and the child, Uehling said.

"We're the gatekeeper for new arrivals, as well as taking real good parents and making them better parents. We work with them both."

Work with the parents includes sharpening their parental skills and helping parents interact with their children better, Uehling explained.

"Over the years, we've had to pare the 'frills' out of the ECFE and the At-Risk Pre-schooler (which took an 18-percent hit) programs so we're past that point. We are down to the needs," Uehling concluded.

If anyone is interested in making donations to the program, they need only to contact Uehling at 507-359-8417. By the way, Uehling was so pleased with the response to this year's event that she has already confirmed the date for the "second annual" event next year.

Ron Larsen can be reached at rlarsen@nujournal.com.