In its 31st year Caring for the Kenai returns to the private sector.
December 29th Soldotna, Alaska. It was 1990 when the first Caring for the Kenai (CFK) was introduced to the Kenai Peninsula School District (KPBSD) as a unique environmental education program funded by Unocal Alaska and created by Sikorski Consulting. As the program grew and Unocal sold their Cook Inlet assets to Agrium & Chevron, CFK was licensed to a non-profit in order to utilize corporate foundation funds for the program.
The CFK program continued winning many national awards and added classroom cash awards to the student prizes for the top 12 entries annually. Since the classroom awards began over $280,000 has been shared with science and language arts classrooms that use CFK as part of their curriculum. When Agrium closed and Chevron sold their Inlet assets, Tesoro stepped up to become the signature CFK sponsor and the Challenger Learning Center of Alaska became the licensed non-profit to administer CFK. With the economic decline of the oil and gas industry on the Peninsula it became necessary for CFK to find additional funding sources if CFK was to continue. In order to reduce administration costs Sikorski Consulting decided to cancel the non-profit licensing agreement and to return CFK to the private sector. This opens CFK to small business and individual investing by advertising with the CFK social media presence. Marathon Petroleum will continue to be our Signature Sponsor in appreciation for their years of support.
“We have no intention of reducing the student awards or the classroom cash awards this year,” said CFK creator Merrill Sikorski, “In surveying parents, educators, small businesses and officials of the community it was unanimous that CFK should continue. CoVid19 may have changed a lot of things in our lives, but it has not diminished the creative thinking of our youth or the opportunity to find useful solutions to environmental challenges on the Peninsula. I have every confidence that many members of the community will want to support CFK through their advertising budgets,” said Sikorski.
To learn more about the new CFK funding program go to this link https://chip-in.co/pot/43 or log on to www.caringforthekenai.com and click on the investment link.
