By Nate Jones
Staff Writer
    The Education Foundation of the Kennebunks will be testing the spelling abilities of teams from local businesses and organizations next week at their second annual spelling bee. All proceeds from the event will help the organization raise funds to enrich local education programs. The foundation has been offering interactive programs since Ted Damon founded it in June 2006.
    “Our goal is to fund new and engaging types of activities that wouldn’t normally be funded by a school budget,” Damon said.
Damon, who is also the current president of the foundation, said the national organization began in response to a California law that capped the amount of property taxes that could be used to fund educational programs. As a result, he said. Many schools no longer had the budget to allow students to go on special trips or provide them with new technology.
    The Kennebunk group is one of 15 in Maine, and there are more than 7,000 nationwide. Damon said last year the Education Foundation of the Kennebunks raised $57,000 and was able to support 12 new educational programs for local students.
    Damon said many program ideas come from educators, who the foundation works with closely.
    “We don’t specialize in any school, grade or subject. We ask teachers to dream a little,” he said. “We ask them what they would want to do if money wasn’t an object.”
    While not all ideas are approved by the foundation’s grant committee, sometimes the ideas generated by teachers are incorporated directly by the schools, Damon said.
    “We make it fun, interesting and enjoyable,” he said. “Our programs allow the kids to go beyond the classroom.”
    One program sponsored by the foundation sent 265 Sea Road School fourth and fifth graders to Kennebunk’s Hartwood College of Art where they were exposed to 10 different types of art mediums, Damon said.
    “Then the students chose which medium they wanted to work with for the next two days of the program,” he said. “It was a chance for the kids to immerse themselves in art for three whole days.”
    Another program sent staff of The Rampage, Kennebunk High School’s student newspaper, to the Columbia School of Journalism in New York.
    “That was great exposure for those kids, who are using what they saw down there,” Damon said.
    Not all programs are trips, Damon said, as the foundation purchased cameras for the Middle School of the Kennebunks.
    “They had computers with the ability to make movies, but no cameras. Now they’re making movies and are going to have an Academy Award night,” Damon said.
Some of the programs the foundation sponsors ultimately end up in the school budget, Damon said. The foundation often supports education pilot programs, which would normally not be able to attain funding from schools, such as an accelerated reading and math computer program that allows students to learn at their own pace, he said.
    “We help kids take academic initiatives,” Damon said.
    The annual spelling bee is the foundation’s largest fundraiser. Damon said he expects this year to be as much of a success as the first event in 2007, which raised a significant amount for the foundation.
    “The response last year was overwhelming,” he said.
    This year’s spelling bee will be similar to last year’s in that all participants are part of a three-person team. Damon said it’s important to emphasize that not just one person makes a mistake when a word is spelled incorrectly.
    The “sudden death” competition eliminates teams until two are left; last year teams from the United Way and the Kennebunk Free Library were the last two standing, Damon said.
    “We just hoped we would get past the first word,” said Carol Whitten, a member of the Kennebunk Free Library’s team.
    The United Way lost to the librarians on the word ‘labyrinth.’ Whitten said they will be defending their title at this years’ competition by practicing during the day.
    “We throw a word at each other now and then,” Whitten said. “We figure that if we don’t know the word by now, we probably won’t for the contest.”
    Damon said 90 percent of the sponsors involved in this year’s event were also involved last year. Teams that enroll are required to pay $50 per member, and businesses that donate $1,000 are also allowed a team in the competition, Damon said.
    The second annual spelling bee will be Wednesday, Feb. 13 at the Sea Road School Gymnasium in Kennebunk. For more information on the Education Foundation or the spelling bee, visit their Web site, www.educationfoundationofthekennebunks.org, or email Kcrowly@msad71.net.
    To contact Nate Jones call 282-4337, ext. 233 or email news@kennebunkpost.com.