COEUR d’ALENE — Teachers in Coeur d’Alene School District 271 will be making some new friends.

Teacher’s Friends, Inc., is a new 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization starting up to provide financial assistance to teachers of grades K-12. The primary focus is to supplement the personal money that many teachers spend to expand their students’ academic experiences and enhance their own teaching education.

“Idaho has some of the lowest paid teachers in the nation and here they are, paying $200 to $2,000 a year out of their pockets,” said real estate agent and Teacher’s Friends, Inc. member Marshall Mend. “That’s what this organization wants to fix.”

Mend and four other members met Saturday morning at The Coeur d’Alene Resort to discuss building Teacher’s Friends, Inc., from the ground up. Domino’s Pizza franchisee Jim Hightower led the meeting, which included Mend, Jump for Joy business owner Ben Woitas, city of Coeur d’Alene wastewater superintendent Sid Fredrickson and Lake City High School computer graphics teacher Dan Armstrong. They discussed the details of establishing the organization, such as choosing a website domain, creative fundraising ideas, financial needs of the school district and basics of being a successful community entity.

“We’re not limiting ourselves,” Hightower said. “The sky’s the limit as far as I’m concerned.”

The organization is run completely by volunteers, and still has room for some board members.

“We want to be real transparent and we want to make sure that all the money that we take in other than expenses goes to education,” Hightower said. “We want to be careful that nobody’s going to make any money off this endeavor or out of it except for expenses.”

Teacher’s Friends, Inc., became incorporated in October. It was originally signed into being by Hightower, Cathyanne Nonini and James Ballew. Nonini and Ballew were unable to attend Saturday’s meeting. Jim Purtee and Teresa Espe are also on the Teacher's Friends board.

Hightower, a recent former Coeur d’Alene school board member, said he toured local schools with a school board colleague and really saw a need within school district 271. During the meeting, he discussed a shop teacher in the area who budgets to spend $2,000 out of his personal funds on his class each year, a process with which Armstrong is familiar.

“A lot of us teachers don’t really document all that stuff,” Armstrong said. “We just say ‘Well, it needs to happen, we’re going to make it happen.’ The alternative is it not happening and that’s unacceptable.”

As of Saturday, Armstrong said he had a bag of receipts totaling about $540 in purchases that he has made out of his personal funds for his classroom. He could spend more than $700 by the end of the year, and that doesn’t include travel, room and board fees when attending conferences to enrich his professional development.

“There are some teachers that say, ‘Oh, I don’t really spend anything,’ but if they documented it, they don’t come in under $200, I’m sure of it,” he said. “The people who spend the most, generally care the most.”

Teacher’s Friends, Inc. intends to raise $15 for each of the more than 10,000 students in the school district. That’s roughly $150,000, which seems like a high amount, but Hightower is confident the cause is noble and worth it.

 “I want this to be a lot of fun,” he said. “It’s a very good cause, it’s a very worthy cause ... I think this is a good thing. It’s kind of sad this need is there, but on the other hand I think that we can have a lot of fun raising money and I think it will do a lot of good to help our students, and help our teachers help our students.”

Hightower said the broad spectrum of people who are in support of the group’s mission is notable.

“It’s also an example of what I think people are supposed to do in the United States of America, which is come together and solve problems,” he said.

Teacher’s Friends, Inc., will meet once a week and become more active in its endeavors after the holidays.