Michael Ward has been on the board of directors of the Excel Foundation for more than 10 years and doesn’t see himself leaving anytime soon.

The Excel Foundation is a nonprofit that grants money to teachers in the Coeur d’Alene School District who want to do creative lessons but don’t get enough funding to make it happen.

“The Excel Foundation has been around for 30 years and contributed $1.5 million to the classrooms of the Coeur d’Alene School District 271 in the form of approximately 1,000 grants,” Ward said. “Those grants are awarded to the teachers that showed, in their requests for the grant, that they had a very creative and innovative approach to providing extra learning opportunities that would expose their students to a concept or idea they wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to learn about.”

For the 2016-2017 school year, Excel is giving $138,000, which is about 60 grants, to the school district.

Ward said one teacher who got a grant will use the money to bring solar panels into the classroom to give his students a hands-on experience about energy consumption.

“It’s not just I need more pens and paper or crayons in the classroom,” Ward said. “It’s very project related.”

Ward involves himself in the community in as many ways as he knows how. Not only is he a board member and past president of the Excel Foundation, he’s a board member of the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce, he’s a past president of the Coeur d’Alene Library Foundation, he served on the board the Lake City Community Church and several other nonprofits and he has coached many Little League and junior tackle football teams.

Ward sat down with The Press to discuss the importance of funding education.

Why is education important to you?

Easy. The future of our community rests in the success of the children’s ability to become the best they can be, whatever avenue they take. So when they’re in the classroom, when they have opp to learn something that will give them a skill that allows them to give back to the community.

The next generation needs to be well prepared and it’s easy to support education. I don’t even have any kids, well, now I have three step kids still in school, but even without them there I would still be doing this because it’s important. I want to be able to know that as I get older and older that there’s a generation of young people who can make this place even better.

How did you find out about Excel and what motivated you to get involved?

That was a long time ago. I can’t remember who nominated me, to be honest. We have a nomination process so someone on the board of directors at the time must have proposed myself along with three or four of the other folks.

I probably knew them through the Chamber [of Commerce] or just through community involvement. I think somewhere in all of that, through all the connections.

Just knowing that we were going to make a difference in the lives of students and the teachers that are trying to make a difference for them, and that they need the help, it’s really pretty simple.

That’s what got me involved, I was like ‘all right, let’s get me signed up.’ And that’s why I’ve been on the Excel board for about 10 years now, I can’t say no.

What are some of the really cool projects that Excel helped to fund?

Well, Mike Clabby, an old teacher at Lake City High School, he won teacher of the year award for Idaho many years ago. He applied for, and received, a grant to bring computer technology into his classroom.

At the time he was teaching animatronics and those kind of things, things that you would see when you go to see the movie Toy Story, anything pixar related. Animation and computer generated graphics, stuff like that.

And I share this all the time because it always just blows me away. I mean this is exactly why we do Excel.

One of his students, apparently he was in Seattle sometime for a computer or science convention. He ran into one of his students there and she was like, ‘Mr. Clabby, I got a job working at Pixar. Next time you’re in L.A. let me know and I’ll give you a tour.’

And so sure enough, he went down there and she was one of the animators on one of the Pixar films.

But she would probably never be doing that had she not gone to his class and gone ‘wow this is cool, this is pretty easy.’

So there are a lot of cool projects that get funded that are really great.

Do you get to go into the classrooms to see all of this great learning happen?

Yes, as board members, that’s what we’re asked to do. We latch on to a particular school where we might know most of the teachers somehow, someway.

We’re asked to witness it and take pictures of it.

The thing I like most about the classroom visits is you get to sit next to the student and say ‘so, tell me,’ and they get all excited about what it is they’re doing because they wouldn’t have gotten that thing in front of them, whether it’s an iPad or a piece of clay, if it weren’t for Excel.

Do you hear back from the students?

Oh yeah, time from time. You kind of hear it through the teachers mostly. They share it with us. But every now and again you’ll run into a student in the community and they’ll be talking about it. It makes you feel good.

• • •

The Excel Foundation is hosting its Big Event annual fundraiser at 5 p.m. Nov. 12 at the Best Western Plus Coeur d’Alene Inn on Appleway Avenue. Tickets are $65 per person. There will be dinner, a silent auction, a live auction and more. The theme this year is Denim and Diamonds.

For more information, call (208) 765-9500.