The Mishawaka Education Foundation will hold its annual silent auction Saturday, raising money for school programs. But this year’s event will be bigger, celebrating the high school’s 100th birthday.
The Mishawaka Education Foundation, itself marking its 30th birthday, raises money to support the district’s K through 12 schools. The donations they solicit pay for things that tax dollars often don’t, everything from robotics and Lego leagues to media arts.
The foundation’s big event is an annual auction held around the community, sometimes at Notre Dame. But this year, on Saturday from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m., the auction will happen at the high school to mark its construction a century ago in 1924. Visitors will also learn about programs their donations have paid for.
High School broadcasting and media arts teacher Matt Rendall is excited and said he feels grateful to the foundation. When he hired on in 2017 the foundation supplied equipment like cameras and tripods.
Then in 2021 Rendall says the foundation stepped up in a big way.
"We were looking to get a new television studio set and they said to 'Dream big,' so I did," Rendall said. "I found a manufacturer out of New York who custom built a set to fit into our space, and MEF gave us all the money for that, and it looks awesome. It's really a cool thing for the kids to experience.
"It helps the students to see what maybe a professional set looks like. It's got a really nice desk, it has our logos, has lights, back-lighted, all the things, and the point that we wanted was to make it feel like Mishawaka so the kind of backdrop is the brick, which is such a classic, iconic part of the Mishawaka building."
He says the production-quality TV studio cost about $85,000.
"It was a big price tag, especially in a school where you don't always have the money to make things work."
Some 100 students now take Rendall’s classes and join his after-school program, compared to just a handful when he started in 2017.
Rendall graduated from Mishawaka, as did his parents, grandparents and a great-grandparent. He grew up in a house across the street from the school, and he now lives in his own house across the street.
He’s especially eager for Saturday to unveil a documentary film, running at least 30 minutes, that he’s made about the building.
"To see it every day and to experience what it's like to be a kid growing up on the street, then as a student, and then to find my way back now as an educator, is pretty cool," Rendall said.
