Cultivating tomorrow's leaders: Building what's possible for Durham's public schools

Throughout our “Together, We Build What’s Possible” campaign, we’re celebrating what’s possible when our community comes together for Durham’s public schools. This is a look at the heart of our public school ecosystem — our students.

At Hillside High School, students are cultivating workforce development and leadership skills and gaining confidence, all while sharpening their cooking abilities through a DPSF Innovation Grant.

The project, “Nothing is Wasted: Building Leaders Through Food,” is set up as an after-school program, particularly for historically underrepresented students.

These students are already making a great impact by showing up at the Black Farmers Market and collaborating with local collective, No Skips, to pack kits for families (as seen above), make recipe cards, and host a food drive. At the collaborative event, the students collected needed items, including 161 canned goods, 89 toiletry items, and 20 clothing items. The items will be donated to Fayetteville Street Elementary's new Resource Center to benefit DPS families — a student-led effort strengthening its own DPS community.

Thanks to our supporters, we awarded $135,000 to 27 school-based projects this year. But did you know that we received 93 applications totaling $840,156 — far more than we could fund? Your gift to our end-of-year campaign today helps meet that need and ensures more students can lead, thrive, and shape what’s possible for Durham’s public schools.

Donate to the DPSF End-of-Year Campaign