Two people, Mathilde Schaumberg and her husband Joseph, recently came forward to publicly thank the Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation for helping the kids in their program have a great time this summer.
Mathilde Schaumberg, a teacher and the director of the before and after school care program at the Pablo Roybal Elementary School, became director of the program this year.
The after school program provides enrichment activities for kindergarten- through fifth-grade students. This summer, the students went on field trips to the Albuquerque Aquarium, Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, the ¡Explora! Science Center and Children’s Museum in Albuquerque, the Los Alamos Farmer’s Market, and other places. “With that grant, they were able to use it for transportation, swimming lessons and go on several field trips,” Joseph Schaumberg said.
The program has 20 to 25 students, but the program has been known to have up to 40 members, Joseph Schaumberg said. The students took their swimming lessons at the Pojoaque Wellness Center every Thursday afternoon, which was a half-day at the school. Transportation costs were prohibitive for this program and the field trips until the foundation stepped in. “It wouldn’t have been possible without the grant for transportation from the LANL Foundation,” Joseph Schaumberg said.
The LANL Foundation has annually provided $1,500 in support for the program through the foundation’s “Education and Community Grants Program.”
Gwen Warniment, program director at the LANL Foundation, said their program is designed to fund activities that aren’t provided by schools.
“We really want to support the idea of lifelong learning for our students and families so that they are critically-engaged citizens,” she said. “We recognize that all forms of education, formal and informal, is vital to that purpose.” One of the student’s favorite trips was Meow Wolf. “It really captivated the kids, it really got their attention,” Joseph Schaumberg said.
In 2015, the LANL Foundation funded over 80 programs through the Education and Community Grants Program, including summer reading programs in the Los Alamos Public Schools. It also funded the purchase of LEGO kits for the Barranca Mesa Elementary Robotics Club.
Besides the foundation’s small grants program, the foundation was also responsible in 2015 for funding scholarships for deserving high school students and offering more than $1.5 million in support to science programs to school systems throughout northern New Mexico.
The foundation is a 501 3(c) corporation. Donations can be made at lanlfoundation.org.
