At the Manassas Park Education Foundation (BELL), our mission is simple but ambitious: to support our students, teachers, and schools in ways that make a lasting difference. We focus our efforts in four key areas:
- Scholarships – helping our graduating seniors take the next step toward their dreams.
- Teacher Grants – empowering educators to bring creative, innovative ideas to life in their classrooms.
- Literacy – supporting programs that build a strong foundation for student success.
- Basic Needs & Food Insecurity – ensuring our students have the essentials they need to learn and thrive.
While literacy and basic needs projects often receive targeted grants and specified donations, our teacher grants and scholarships are where the real fundraising challenge lies each year.
Meeting This Year’s Goal
For 2025, we’ve committed to awarding $10,000 in teacher grants and $20,000 in scholarships.
Right now, only about $8,000 of our scholarship funds come from recurring donations and partnerships. That means we must raise $22,000 this year to fully fund our teacher grants and scholarships—the programs that directly reward our graduates and fuel innovation in our classrooms.
On top of that, we work to raise another $5,000 throughout the year to respond to smaller needs that arise across the division — the kinds of “little lifts” that help teachers and students in the moment.
The Bigger Vision
While we’re working hard to meet our annual commitments, we also have a long-term goal: building a $100,000 endowment over the next five years. This endowment will create a permanent source of funding for our initiatives, making it possible to plan bigger, dream bolder, and serve more students without starting from scratch every year.
Why Our Events Matter
This is why events like our DC United Night, TopGolf Brunch Fundraiser and Breakfast with the Superintendent are so important. These gatherings aren’t just a great way to network and connect — they generate the resources through sponsorship and ticket sales that allow us to:
- Write checks to our graduating students, helping them begin their college or career journey without as much financial strain.
- Fund the creative, passionate projects our teachers dream up to inspire their students.
How You Can Help
If you attend one of our events, give to our general fund, or become a recurring donor, you are making a direct investment in the future of Manassas Park. Every dollar helps us keep our commitments to students and educators — and brings us closer to our vision of an endowment that will serve generations to come.
