The Cissna Park Education Foundation was founded in 2000 by John Bruns, a 20 year member of the School Board. His dream was to provide scholarships to graduating students and funding to teachers for needed items. A Board of Directors was assembled, the foundation was incorporated as a ‘Not for Profit’ and the first memorial scholarship was given that year to a graduate of what would have been his daughter Cassandra’s graduating class. For a number of years, the Foundation focused on scholarships because it lacked the funding needed to expand it’s efforts.

Then in 2010, a change in the board; a shift in philosophy; and a major fundraising effort provided the funding needed for the foundation. In the Spring of 2011, the first ‘Mini-Grants’ were awarded to teachers, allowing them to request funding for needed classroom items.

Since then,  the Foundation has awarded many classroom grants totaling tens of thousands of dollars.  Almost every class room has benefited from the communities generosity from Chemistry to Kindergarten.  Technology has also been upgraded throughout the school as keeping up with those changes remains a challenge.