The Cornville-based nonprofit Low Income Student Aid, which offers services and direct funding to local students who are in need of financial assistance, is now active at West Sedona School.

The new partnership is the group’s first expansion within the Sedona-Oak Creek School District after being formed in 2017 as a pilot program at Cottonwood-Oak Creek School District’s Oak Creek School in Cornville.

“We had our opening meeting yesterday with Principal [Elizabeth] Tavasci and three of four members,” LISA treasurer Eric Wyles said on Jan. 19. “There’s going to be a five [member] team on campus for LISA. We’ve grown from a single school where we helped every student — not just low-income students, but we were able to help every student with free books and stuff like that. But we now help students at the Cottonwood Community Schools, Dr. Daniel Bright School, Oak Creek School and West Sedona. We are now an organization that started out helping 250 kids — we’re helping 1,600 kids now.”

“We’re so excited about LISA coming to West Sedona School,” Tavasci said. “While we’re still learning all the ins and outs of how the process works, we’re inspired by the heart behind the LISA organization … It struck me during our meeting last Thursday that LISA is about removing barriers and providing opportunities for students to fully experience school, and in a lot of ways, life. When a child is included and able to participate, it makes a huge difference. We’re excited about the difference we know that LISA will make for our Wildcats.”

The LISA committee members at West Sedona School are Tavasci, district translator Maria Ortega, counselor Karen Hughes, reading specialist Erin Gonzalez and ELD teacher Dani Beinfest.

“LISA committee members help to approve aid requests for students at WSS school that are $300 or less,” Tavasci said. “They also provide input and feedback to the LISA board for student aid requests over $300. The LISA committee is meant to help get the aid directly into the hands of students, and since the committee is made up of WSS staff members, they have a relationship with these students. We already know and love these students and that is one of the reasons LISA wants us to have a school-based committee. The LISA committee also participates in LISA meetings. We’re still learning our roles at WSS and are excited about the future.”

“We are in Sedona because of the Burton Family Foundation. We always had plans to add Sedona,” Wyles said. “But they have helped us add them sooner than we could have. They gave us a matching grant opportunity, and they want their dollars to stay in Sedona, which is good. Because we need funding to start [in] schools. Once we get started, people support us … They’re matching us dollar for dollar. Every dollar we raise up to $17,500, they will match. That’s $35,000, that’s a lot of money to help kids.”

The Burton Family Foundation makes its grants through a fund managed by the Arizona Community Foundation.

“We owe a big debt of gratitude to not only ACF for helping us so many times, but now the Burton Family Foundation to step up to open a new school,” Wyles said.

LISA programming at West Sedona School is a continuation of direct support to students. Any individual can request financial aid for a student, which can take many forms.

“The ‘Basic Needs’ project will specifically fund any qualifying low-income student aid requests including clothing, toiletries, school supplies, literacy materials, pay-to-play athletic fees, after-school care fees, preschool tuition, educational intervention programs, educational trip fees, food and internet service for remote learning,” the grant application states.

LISA does not currently plan to expand to more schools until 2025. In addition, it plans to apply for the city of Sedona’s Small Grant Program for this year, to speak during the public comment period at an upcoming Sedona City Council meeting and to unveil a new website over the summer.

“LISA has received funding of $10,000 from the Single Track Futures Foundation and $15,000 from ACF of Yavapai County for fiscal year 2024,” the organization wrote in its grant application to ACF. “LISA has received $17,000 from ACF Yavapai County individual donors at the Joy of Giving Ceremony for FY 2024. LISA has a carryover of $28,000 from FY 2023 of unrestricted capital as well. LISA will also promote a‘100 in 100,’ 100 tax credit donations in 100 days, [in] January 2024 — April 2024. LISA is presenting to civic groups, school boards and Cottonwood City Council to bring awareness to the LISA mission.”

“We are going to see how everything operates for a year because we want to make sure we can sustain this momentum,” Wyles said. “We don’t want to give something to a campus and then take it away. That’s just no good for kids. Our next planned expansion will be the junior and senior high in Sedona. Once we have the Sedona junior high and senior high covered, then we’ll go to another district … We choose the schools that have the highest free and reduced percentages of low income or free and reduced lunch percentages of low income students.”

“A lot of people think Sedona is affluent and they don’t need help, but with 70% of the kids qualifying [for free and reduced lunch], they definitely can use the assistance,” LISA program manager and volunteer secretary Jeanna Mandeville said. “We’re excited to be able to help individual students. We talked a lot about partnering with their [parent-teacher association]. As PTA, they have fundraiser events, and they charge an admission to come in, and a lot of kids, their families can’t afford that … And that something that LISA can provide is a voucher or for a wristband so that they can go. The money is a double-win, because we pay that money to the PTA … so the money goes right back into the school.” 

LISA staff have discussed providing free books to students as well, which is also financially beneficial to teachers.

“We also keep money in the teacher’s pocket because so many educators end up supporting their students out of their own pockets,” Wyles said.

“We’ll work over the next couple of weeks to share information about LISA with our entire Wildcat community,” Tavasci said. “We’re so excited about this journey.”