With the school year drawing to a close, Mary Hillman can breathe a little easier thanks to this week’s donation of $735.38 from the Perry Fareway round-up fundraiser. Hillman is the director of PACES or Perry Academic Cultural and Enrichment Services.
“This will let me pay the bus drivers,” Hillman said. She said enriching field trips are a big part of the PACES experience, but transportation costs money, and PACES receives no funding from the school system but relies entirely on grants, donations and fundraisers.
Fareway Manager Travis Landgrebe said PACES is a program well worth supporting. He said the round-up fundraiser has been a regular event at Fareway for several years.
“Mary is remarkable in what she brings to these kids,” Landgrebe said, standing among about 60 PACES students in the Perry Elementary School cafeteria. “That she does it on a shoestring budget is even more amazing,” he said.
Now in its 18th year in the Perry school system, PACES has served more than 10,000 students and offered more than 200 programs, Hillman said.
