HISTORY

The BRAVO Education Foundation grew out of the seeds of friendship between Barbara BRAdley and Maureen CalVO.  Barbara is a retired Speech and Language Therapist (35 years) and Maureen a retired Special Educator (38 years). Their friendship spans over 40 years and their shared experiences as educators has been one of many binding threads that fortify their relationship. During the summer of 2023, while facing her ongoing battle with cancer, Barbara felt it in her heart to share a small piece of her life’s savings with Maureen “to use however she wanted” as an expression of love and gratitude for their friendship. Maureen wholeheartedly believed Barbara’s unexpected monetary gift was the sign she had been praying for.

​

You see,  at the same time, Maureen was feeling a strong tug at her heart to make a significant, meaningful, long-term contribution to her community that might have a positive impact on its schools. More specifically, her vision was to create a non-profit foundation dedicated to providing grants to teachers who wanted to initiate innovative and enhanced learning opportunities for their students, but lacked school-based funding to do so. However, when faced with the costs associated with making this dream a reality, Maureen felt a bit overwhelmed and prayed for a “sign” that might battle her discouragement and renew her conviction to pursue this mission. Barbara's monetary gift not only provided the seed money to make Maureen's dream a reality, but also provided a means to honor her dear friend's generous, loving, and selfless gift.

​

Initially rooted from the seeds of friendship, BRAVO Education Foundation was incorporated in September of 2023. It is in its early stages of development, and we have much more work to do! We enthusiastically and actively seek to engage community members in building positive, collaborative relationships that pave the way to accomplish its mission and goals.