By Robert Tomlinson
News Director
CONSTANTINE — As a student at Constantine High School in the mid-to-late 2000s, Casey Smagala and his family weren’t able to afford many extracurricular opportunities that would have enhanced his educational experience, in particular the school’s Youth in Government program.
At the time, he even thought the program wasn’t for him, because of his family’s financial situation at the time, even though his friends thought he was sociable enough to be a good fit for Youth in Government.
In his sophomore year, Smagala recalled a meeting with an advisor at the school one day, where he was told he’d be doing Youth in Government that year, and that it was thanks to a group of parents who got together to raise enough money to cover the costs of him being a part of the program.
“For me, that was the first time in my life I felt something aside from sports that I thought I was good at,” Smagala said of his experience in Youth in Government. “All because some of my friends’ parents were like, Casey’s a good kid. He should be able to go to this.”
The 37-year-old Smagala hearkened back to that generosity, and the experience he gained from Youth in Government, as the spark that led him to a number of opportunities following his graduation in 2008, including running for the Chicago City Council in 2019 and helping to run a government contracting and construction business in New York City, where he now resides.
Now, Smagala and a group of four of his former classmates from his graduation year are looking to pay that generosity forward to the next generations of Constantine Public Schools students.
On Saturday, a launch party was held at River Trade Brewing Company in Constantine for the Falcon Fund, a new nonprofit fund established under the St. Joseph County United Way umbrella. Its goal is to support and fully fund any Constantine Public Schools student to participate in career exploration activities and extracurricular opportunities, such as career and technical education, DECA, Science Olympiad, Youth in Government, and more.
Smagala is working alongside fellow 2008 grads Andrew Morse, Dustin Jennings, Ryan Wolf, and Andria (Baker) Ettinger on developing the Falcon Fund, with planning meetings happening every Sunday between them since October. The effort has gained plenty of traction since the project was first discussed on social media publicly back in November, and has far exceeded early expectations, having raised over $10,000 from individual donors and local businesses thus far.
“On our first call, we were like, it’d be so cool if we could raise, like, $1,500 at the launch party, and then we’re like, yeah, well, maybe the moonshot’s like $3,000. We’re rolling into tonight having raised $10,000,” Smagala said. “I think heading out of tonight and into early January, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we could extend our moonshot to maybe a Mars-shot and say $20,000.”
According to the Falcon Fund’s Facebook page, the launch party raised $7,000 by itself for the fund, something their celebration post said “far exceeded expectations.”
The fund is expected to start accepting applications for funding as early as Jan. 5. Any student from grades K through 12 in the Constantine Public Schools district is eligible to receive funding, with applications to be available on the St. Joseph County United Way’s website and possibly on the school district’s website. The application form will ask what the opportunity is, how much it costs, when they need the funds by, and will ask for a letter of recommendation from a teacher, coach, counselor or administrator in Constantine.
One thing Smagala emphasized is there are no academic requirements and no financial requirements to be eligible to receive funds from the Falcon Fund.
“We don’t want a family who’s in need or a student who has high opportunity to have more hurdles in front of them to get access to career activities and opportunities,” Smagala said. “So that’s why our nomination and application form is very concise and very frank and not many hurdles in front of them.”
According to the Eventbrite event description for the launch party, there are a couple of other eligibility requirements for the Falcon Fund: That students who apply must have an “excellent attendance record” and must “demonstrate commitment to the Constantine community through extracurricular activities, athletics, volunteerism, or other positive contributions.”
Another thing Smagala emphasized is that the Falcon Fund is not just for high school seniors – it’s for every student in the district.
“That’s something I’m very proud to say is kind of novel about the Falcon Fund,” Smagala said. “It’s kind of intentionally for kids who are in school who are still, again, exploring career opportunities and activities, say going on the Washington, D.C. trip, which is $1,000. For a family of Constantine, that’s something you have to prepare for.”
Smagala said they have been speaking with administrators and counselors in the school district about the fund, and will look to keep up connections as the fund gets up and running in January. So far, he said, those communications have gone well.
“We’ve talked to principals, the counselor at the high school, other teachers around the district, and there’s been no skepticism, just complete enthusiasm and willingness to help and support,” Smagala said. “One of my goals in the past two months has been to talk to a teacher, coach, counselor, administrator at least three days a week, because we’ve been really good at the donation side, but delivery is also important.”
As for how they got partnered with the United Way, Smagala said they originally reached out to Constantine residents Mike and Kathy Messner, who recommended they talk with the Sturgis Area Community Foundation. After some discussion with the Community Foundation, they recommended Smagala and company reach out to the United Way to host the fund, which they agreed to do.
Smagala said both the Community Foundation and United Way have been helpful in the process of getting the fund off the ground.
“One great thing about working with Kelly [Hostetler] and United Way is 100 percent of every person’s gift goes directly to helping kids in Constantine and programs to support them. There’s no overhead at all for us to park these generous donations with Kelly and the team at the United Way of St. Joe County,” Smagala said.
Hostetler, the executive director of the St. Joseph County United Way, said it was “amazing” to help out the Falcon Fund, calling it a “perfect fit” for the organization.
“This is a group of people who graduated from Constantine, they went and got their education, they did their thing, they have jobs elsewhere, but they came back. They’re coming back here to invest in the youth here and to help them be successful,” Hostetler said. “That’s what United Way is all about, just investing in our youth, and how great is that that they didn’t forget where they came from, and they came back.”
Jennings, one of the other people helping put the Falcon Fund together, said being part of its development “hits very close to home” for everybody involved.
“We’re all very passionate about all these extracurricular programs that we’re trying to support and really grow and expand as well. Not just maintain, but actually allow the kids to excel by having additional resources that we think back and maybe we would have benefited from,” Jennings said. “We all have very fond memories of participating in these things. And several of us have grown into hobbies and careers that were sparked by a lot of these programs that we’re talking about supporting.”
Jennings said he took computer-aided design (CAD) classes through the county’s CTE program for two years, saying that class was one of the “stepping stones” that got him into engineering. Other technical education classes, he added, allowed him to develop “a lot of fundamentals that maybe my peers didn’t have.” Having kinds in those programs, Jennings said, would help benefit students moving forward.
“I really want to see our current students have those same opportunities or even grow some of those programs,” Jennings said. “I think that’s super important, especially for a smaller community, to take care of the things that we do have.”
As the Falcon Fund gets off the ground, Jennings and Smagala said they will be learning and understanding what kind of needs are out there, and while Smagala said they’re not “experts” in fundraising projects, they are passionate about helping out the next generation, and that the mission to help and empower students will not change.
“We will get more refined, but what’s not going to change is our mission. Our mission is to empower students in Constantine to explore their full potential through career activities and opportunities. That that’s not going to change,” Smagala said. “We’re going to refine over time on exactly what we’re funding, but that mission is not going to shift.”
In all, Smagala said, the Falcon Fund is a way to pay it forward to a community that made them who they are today.
“It’s only right that us who have graduated, and, sure, geographically have moved away, but Constantine’s still in our hearts,” Smagala said. “We’re not carrying the torch, but just lighting it even brighter.”
More information on how to donate to the Falcon Fund can be found on the “Falcon Fund” page on Facebook, as well as the St. Joseph County United Way’s website, sjcuf.com.
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@wilcoxnewspapers.com.
