FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Funding for the Freedom School comes primarily from the parents. Eighty percent of the operating budget for fiscal year 1988 came from the community of Akwesasne; ten percent from tuitions of $1000 per family; and seventy percent from fund raisers, including an annual quilt auction and chicken dinner, a survival race, concerts, lasagna suppers, car washes, and T-shirt sales. The remaining twenty percent comes from donations by individuals and foundations. In-kind donations by parents, the community, and friends covered much of school maintenance, special activities, and fund raising costs.

Your help is needed now at the Akwesasne Freedom School. Through the knowledge and understanding the children gain of their people’s traditions, important values are nurtured such as self respect, peace through reason, community, and kinship with the natural world. The Akwesasne Freedom School prepares the children to live confidently in the larger American society while preserving their Native heritage for future generations. The students become spiritually and politically aware, making them proud of who they are and more understanding of the peoples of the world.