2017 – $223,516.67

Remember Inkslam? I’ll give you a hint—we first mentioned it in 2009. Well, don’t get too attached to the name. In 2017, Greenway’s annual poetry festival expanded to provide a month-long programming and was renamed the LA Get Down Festival.

Happy Birthday, Greenway! This year, the organization turned 20 years old. Greenway Arts Alliance rang in its 20th anniversary with a special event at the Melrose Trading Post and was honored with declarations from the City of Los Angeles.

Some people celebrate with a bottle of champagne. Greenway celebrated by donating $223,516.67 to Fairfax High School. Wow! Let’s see what went into that total.

A portion of $184,960 went to after-school drama, dance, and film classes. The rest funded in-school arts integration, film, Shakespeare, literature, poetry, and dance classes. Another $100 even helped to put on a dance contest. Let’s boogie!

The Journalism Club had a big year. $2,500 allowed Fairfax students to see their words in print. $1,500 bought several cameras used to document events for the school newspaper. $1,650 paid for ads in the newspaper.

The other extracurricular options thrived as well. The Physics Club made good use of $2,500 by attending a conference and purchasing supplies.

The art department created posters with $300.

Another conference, this time to encourage leadership, cost $3,000 for the students to join.

$5,000 in miscellaneous equipment brightened the athletic department’s year. A camera and some uniforms for the soccer team cost $1,500.

A Hispanic Heritage performance rocked the house for the low cost of $746.28.

I know, it’s a lot of extracurriculars. Don’t worry! The “extra” in “extracurricular” means “in addition,” in this case, in addition to a robust course of studies. For example, 50 copies of Homecoming by Yaa Gyasi and 40 copies of Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates were purchased for $2,000. In addition, $1,839.79 bought Ms. Harris’ history classes textbooks to go along with her teaching. Thank you, Greenway, for making sure our kids are well-read!

As always, Fairfax got some love, too. The campus was beautified with $1,759.3 for gardening, $400 for lion statues, $243.41 for the college quad, $360 for furniture for the main office, and $375 for general repairs.

The people of Fairfax benefited as well as the buildings. $2,790.50 went to the salary of a Campus Aide. The teachers were shown appreciation with $2,436.54 going towards the Teacher Appreciation Day. They got to party again for the holidays, the event costing $6,750.

We ended the year with a big congratulations to the class of 2017. The senior class was onto some big things—a $782.37 College Day helped them to narrow down which bright paths to follow. Lastly, $23.48 is the monetary amount that went into funding for school spirit, but you just can’t put a price on how proud Fairfax is of its Lions.