Lewis Award Endowment Plans
Dr. Larry Grand
Raleigh
Member, Committee Emeritus
For the eighteen years of its existence, the Lewis Award for Excellence in Teaching and Lifetime Achievement in Catholic Education has sought to identify and honor outstanding educators in the Raleigh Diocesan School System. The Award was designed from inception to be a prestigious accolade to the Recipient and to the Finalists specifically, and to the Diocesan Schools in general. It is a vehicle to honor, in as meaningful a manner possible, those who excel at what they do.
The Award functions within, but is a separate entity from, the Diocese of Raleigh; and it receives no monetary support from the Diocese. Since its founding in 1992, it has been completely underwritten by private donations. With permission of Bishop Burbidge, plans are underway to build a permanent Lewis Award Endowment, not only to insure the Award’s future, but to allow the Award to develop presently unavailable opportunities to honor our dedicated teachers. We hope you will join us to make such opportunities possible.
The purpose of the Lewis Award Endowment is to offer superlative educational opportunities to our youth by attracting and retaining exceptional teachers for the Diocesan schools. Further, the Award strives to assist in the promotion of the Diocese of Raleigh Catholic schools as a nationally recognized outstanding school system. As of May 2009, the Endowment has received $218,000 in cash and bequests toward its goal of $1,000,000. 100% of any donation to the Lewis Award Endowment goes into the Endowment corpus, and the corpus should not be invaded. A portion of the annual income from the Endowment is returned to the Endowment to assure its continued growth. The remaining annual income will be the source of funding for that year’s Award activities.
Maisha Mayfield, Excellence in Teaching 1997-1998, with her husband, E. L., and Anne Stahel, Lewis Award Chair
Currently, Lewis Award Excellence in Teaching recipients receive an honorarium of $1500, and their schools receive $500 in the teacher’s honor. Finalists for the Award receive an honorarium of $250, and their school receives $250 in the Finalist honor. Among the plans on a ‘Wish List’ for the Lewis Award is to incrementally increase the Recipient’s honorarium to $5,000 and the Recipient’s school gift to $1,000 as soon as possible. As funds allow, further increases in honoraria will be instituted. For the Finalists and their schools, the increase would be to $1,000 with further increases as income allows.
Other Wish List ideas to be implemented as the endowment grows include, but are not limited to:
- Increasing the honorarium to Lifetime Achievement Award Recipients to $5,000 and inaugurate an honorarium to the Recipient’s school of choice.
- As long as they remain an active full time teacher in a Diocesan school, Recipients and Finalists will be given allocations at the beginning of each school year to purchase classroom supplies of their choosing.
- Establish a Fund to which Recipients and Finalists, while they remain an active full time teacher in a Diocesan school, may apply for tuition grants for Continuing Education courses, working toward advanced degrees and other such Enrichment programs.
- Establish a Fund to which Recipients and Finalists, upon commitment to a specified number of years and remaining an active full time teacher in the Diocesan school system, may apply for tuition grants to study full time to earn advanced degrees.
- Identify and develop other programs, honors and address needs in the Diocese of Raleigh School System as Endowment income allows.