Representatives from the Imagine Foundation handed over their first check to Oak Park and River Forest High School last week and it was a big one: $1 million.
The foundation has a goal of raising $12.5 million to help pay for estimated $102 million cost of Project 2, which will tear down and rebuild the southeast portion of the high school with a new 10 lane swimming pool, a new, third-floor gym and other improvements.
School officials – of course – were thrilled to receive the money, which will be used to reimburse the school for early expenses, such as the professional services of architects, engineers and construction managers.
“There’s so many naysayers that said they’ll never raise any money,” said board member Fred Arkin, a former Imagine Foundation board member.
School board president Tom Cofsky also was thrilled to accept the money.
“To get to this point is very exciting,” Cofsky said.
Work on Project 2 is expected to begin this summer and take a little more than two years to complete.
The Imagine Foundation is a private charitable foundation founded in 2019 to support and raise money for physical improvements to OPRF. It has committed to raising $12.5 million for Project 2 and school officials are counting on that money in their plans to pay for Project 2.
“This grant is an important step towards fulfilling the Imagine Foundation’s commitment to upholding OPRFHS’s tradition of excellence and helping provide ‘Those Things That are Best” to our OPRFHS students and surrounding Oak Park and River Forest communities,” said Imagine Foundation president and co-founder Stephen Schuler in a statement.
Imagine Foundation co-founder and board member Lynn Kamenitsa said that the $1 million came from contributions from about 12 to 15 donors.
“We’ve got several people who’ve really stepped up,” Kamenitsa said. “It’s been people who either are alumni or a lot of families of alumni, people who didn’t go here themselves, but their kids had such a great experience that they really want future generations to have that as well.”
Imagine officials declined to identify donors.
“Eventually they’ll come out when our tax report is made public,” Kamenitsa said.
Fundraising began in the last quarter of 2023 and is still in what Kamenitsa called the “quiet phase.”
“We’re still having lots of conversations privately with other donors,” Kamenitsa said. “We still have a lot of work to do to meet our goal, but we’re really heartened by this early response that we’ve received.”
Schuler said that more public fundraising will begin in four or five months.
“We’ve been pretty quiet about it,” Schuler said. “We have not been publicity- seeking.”
It’s standard fundraising practice to raise a significant amount of money from large donors to gain momentum before making more public appeals.
“There’s no donate button on our web site, we’re not at public events yet passing out pledge forms,” Kamenitsa said. “We will do all of those things. We will have big public kickoff for the community phase of our campaign.”
The Imagine Foundation has raised more money than the $1 million it donated to OPRF last week, but declined to say how much money the foundation has.
Foundation hires Heidi Ruehle as executive director
The Foundation has hired Heidi Ruehle as its new full-time executive director.
Kamenitsa had been serving as a part time executive director. Ruehle, the mother of two OPRF sophomores, is an experienced fundraiser. She has worked for the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation and the Pleasant Home Foundation.
“As the parent in me learns more about the vast benefits and value Project 2 will deliver for our students, I become more ardent as a fundraiser working to fulfill the school’s commitment to academic excellence, personal growth, and social responsibility,” Ruehle said a statement.
“We still have a lot of work to do to raise the funds needed to build a school our kids and community deserve, but I’m already impressed with the strong support we’ve received from both villages, even in these early stages.”