An East Rock resident has promised to give $30,000 to the Wilbur Cross High School Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) — in a matching grant designed to support dozens of student-, educator-, and school-based clubs and projects. As of Thursday, the PTSA at the city’s largest high s chool has raised $24,251 as part of its annual fundraiser. East Rocker Jessica Millar plans to give $30,000 on top of that. Millar is not the parent of a Cross student. Her child goes to Hopkins School. Nevertheless, she’s decided to make that donation in an effort to support the local public school community. The group has aimed each year to increase the amount of investments it makes in the Mitchell Drive school community. The PTSA arranges for staff, students, and parents to make proposals for funding requests for such efforts like new clubs, field trips, or classroom projects. Click here to donate. Over the past three years, Wilbur Cross PTSA President Jake Halpern said, the group has grown and aimed to increase its budget to support the school’s needs. It does so through a grant system. The GoFundMe explains: “Here’s how it [grant system] works: if someone at Cross has a dream — a rain garden, a yoga class, a Dungeons Dragons club, a Hispanic Heritage Festival — this fund makes it real. Last year, we funded 25 projects. This year, we’re aiming for 50!” Before the pandemic, the PTSA’s annual budget was around $2,000. In 2022, the group joined the state’s Parent Teacher Association of CT and got nonprofit status. Since then, it’s been hosting an annual fundraiser to support students’ and staff ideas for improving the school. In its first annual fundraiser, the group raised around $9,000. Over the last two years, it’s raised between $25,000 and $29,000 each year. It aims to support student and staff ideas by offering $500 grants for everything from classroom supplies to chess club travel to sports team needs. “It’s so valuable for the morale,” Halpern told the Independent about the PTSA funding efforts. In addition to the group’s goal of providing larger grants this year, some up to $5,000 apiece, the PTSA is also looking to grow its membership numbers to better reflect Cross’s diversity. Once the fundraiser ends later this month, Halpern said, the PTSA will “prove to be good stewards of the money” by providing the community with updates on the grants through the PTSA’s website. Cross Students Are “All Our Kids” Millar, a five-year East Rock resident, decided to donate $30,000 to the Wilbur Cross PTSA after learning from a neighbor — a former Cross teacher — about the school’s challenges and the parent group’s recent momentum. Millar said the conversation, held during a backyard gathering over the summer, made clear how much the school community was working to support students despite limited resources and funding. When she later reviewed the PTSA’s portfolio of last year’s grants, she said contributing “felt like a no-brainer.” Millar helps lead an organization called GridWorks Energy Consulting. She said what convinced her most was seeing the PTSA grow into what she described as a “dynamic, organic infrastructure” of parents and educators striving to lift students and strengthen the school’s sense of unity. She was particularly drawn to the PTSA’s grant process, in which teachers and administrators review proposals together. “Strong schools start with people who care,” she said, adding that investing in that foundation “is a clear and obvious way to support our young people.” She also described the donation as part of a broader, personal shift in how she thinks about money, community, and responsibility. After years of focusing on financial security — shaped in part by the death of her father seven years ago and her own battles with Ulcerative colitis and chronic lyme disease — Millar said she has been trying to make choices that align more with her values. Giving to Wilbur Cross, she said, “lifts my heart,” and she hopes others in New Haven who are able to contribute will consider doing so. “We’re in a time right now that’s asking for a lot of change. Humanity needs to change and we don’t know what it’s going to look like, but most important is breaking cycles that don’t serve us,” she said. That outlook has reshaped how Millar thinks about her finances. She said she’s trying to adopt healthier money habits grounded in community support. She encouraged those that can give to reconsider their comfort zones. Millar concluded by emphasizing that supporting local schools matters especially during what she described as politically and socially strained times. Helping one another at the neighborhood level, she said, can coexist with pushing for broader policy change. She hopes to stay involved with Wilbur Cross in the spring, particularly in PTSA and local student cleanups. “It really feels like it’s time for us to take care of our young people,” she said. “It’s a great way to change things — starting close to home.” While Cross PTSA Co-Founder Maria Lara-Tejero recently stepped away from her vice president role this year, she recalled in a Thursday interview with the Independent that she helped to launch the parent group in 2022 when her son was a sophomore at Cross. At the time, the school was navigating leadership turnover and disorganization so severe that students, including her son, learned through a last-minute Google Classroom message that sophomores would no longer be allowed to take AP classes. Lara-Tejero said a group of parents formed the PTSA out of a shared desire to keep their kids thriving in a public school. While Lara-Tejero said she could have sent her son to a private school like Hopkins or Choate, she instead saw how Cross could help ground her son in real-world diversity and community. She knew that if she wanted her son to be successful, the work could no longer just fall on school staff. Even though her son is now a freshman in college, she said she remains committed to supporting Cross because she is grateful for the education he received, noting that she wished he could remain at the school for another year after the PTSA’s establishment. “Schools can guide, but unless a parent steps in and supports the teacher or administrator, a request may just go unanswered,” she said. The PTSA now helps fund everything from school dances and student council activities to senior dues and prom; those are costs that the funds raised by the group will directly support before allocating money through small grants. Students and teachers apply with their ideas and a school-community committee reviews them each alongside the principal. Lara-Tejero concluded that while the Cross building itself still has flaws that the PTSA can’t fix, the support it provides through mini-grants “lifts the spirits of the school,” strengthens culture, and helps students and staff feel valued. The post East Rocker Steps Up With $30K Cross Donation appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less