Whitefish schools receive grants

Whitefish High School and middle school will benefit from two grants and a donation totaling $50,000.

Two of the grants will benefit the high school’s Center for Sustainability. The center — to be located on more than 3 acres of land at Pine Avenue and East Fourth Street ­— will encompass a greenhouse, a two-story classroom building, gardens, orchard, experimental forest, native grass meadow, wet meadow detention pond and trails.

A grant from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative will provide $10,000 a year over three years. This is in addition to $2.1 million in private donations toward the project. Whitefish School District Superintendent Heather Davis Schmidt said the first year will help with capital expenses, the second year with staffing and the third year with the center’s experimental forest.

The goal of the experimental forest is to engage students in research and field studies, sustainable management, along with best practices of using forest products, covering topics such as forest hydrology, fire science, forest restoration, soil health and climate change in partnership with the F.H. Stolze Land and Lumber Company, U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service and Whitefish Lake Institute.

The center also benefits from a $10,000 grant from Weyerhaeuser Co., which will help fund capital costs.

Whitefish Middle School is the recipient of a $10,000 donation from the Broussard Charitable Foundation.

“It came unexpectedly as a wonderful gift,” Davis Schmidt said.

A middle school leadership team is working on how to use the donation.

“We appreciate the generosity of the local community,” Davis Schmidt said about the grants and donation. “[The funds] will be beneficial to meeting the educational goals of our students.”