Congratulations to our raffle winner, Sue Lake! Sue’s grandson (pictured here with Sue) convinced her to attend the raffle drawing on Saturday as he had a feeling she would win. Make sure to congratulate Sue when you see her zipping around Hood River on her fabulous new Gazelle Medeo T9.

We want to thank everyone who participated in the raffle this year. Your generosity means we raised nearly $10,000 for our scholarship fund, which will help our local HRVHS seniors pursue their higher education goals in 2022 and beyond.

We also want to thank our local community partners Rosauers and Oregon E-Bike, as well as Ticket Tomato, for making this raffle possible. Thank you!

Please join us in welcoming Meleah Bauman, the new Executive Director for the Hood River County Education Foundation (HRCEF). Ms. Bauman succeeds Laurie Stephens who has been the Foundation Executive Director for the past five years.

Ms. Bauman has lived in Hood River for seven years and worked as a volunteer at Westside and Hood River Middle School, as well as United Way of the Gorge. She was named 2020 Volunteer of the Year at Hood River Middle School. She coached Special Olympics Basketball, and was a
Team Parent for Hood River Youth Lacrosse.

Prior to moving to Hood River, Ms. Bauman served as a US Air Force officer, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel and managing many major projects during her 20-year military career. She was also a Program Manager for Insitu for four years. Moving to the non-profit world, with management skills she has gained in government and private industry positions, was a career goal for Ms. Bauman. “Serving students and teachers is the community that I am most passionate about,” she said.

Board President Jan Veldhuisen Virk said, “We are so pleased to have Meleah joining HRCEF. Her diverse experience and her passion for increasing educational opportunities will serve the Foundation well. At the same time, we are thanking Laurie Stephens for the tremendous job
she did in directing the Foundation with dedication and outstanding leadership.”

This month we say goodbye to our Executive Director of five years, Laurie Stephens.

Laurie leaves HRCEF in much better shape than she found it. During her tenure at HRCEF, she encouraged the HRCEF Board of Directors to develop the Reach for Excellence Gala as a major fundraising event for the Foundation. She remodeled the scholarship program, expanding it to offer more scholarships to HR Valley High School students, and improving communications with scholarship donors. She led the Foundation to support the development of an electronic portal to receive and process students’ scholarship applications. The Opportunity Fund was created during her directorship, to provide middle school sports fees for students whose families could not afford that cost.

HRCEF would not be where we are today without her hard work and dedication over the past five years. We’ll miss you, Laurie, and we wish you the best for your retirement.