About Us.
We support, augment, and enrich the outstanding educational work already happening in Winnacunnet classrooms. We do this through a twice-yearly grant process open to teachers and students, funding curriculum enhancements, innovative programming, and collaborative partnerships that fall outside the regular school budget.
Because that funding is supplemental and independent of the school budget process, we can say yes to the pilot program, the unconventional materials, and the good ideas that arrived at the wrong time of year.
Our Story
From a campaign to a commitment.
The story of the Friends of Winnacunnet Foundation begins not with an endowment, but with a building.
In the early 2000s, our town coalition known as the Winnacunnet Outreach Committee came together to make the public case for the expansion and renovation of Winnacunnet High School — a school shared by the families of Hampton, Hampton Falls, North Hampton, Seabrook and now South Hampton. The campaign asked residents across the communities to see a single school as a shared responsibility. It worked.
But when the vote was won, a handful of those volunteers were unwilling to let that momentum fade. Jerry McConnell and several fellow Outreach Committee members pulled together a new group around a simple conviction: a renovated building is only as good as what happens inside it.
In 2005, that group became the Friends of Winnacunnet Endowment Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization dedicated to providing supplemental funding to sustain a program of excellence in education at Winnacunnet High School.
How we work.
The Foundation was designed from the start as a bridge between the community and the classroom, awarding grants twice a year to fund innovative ideas that fall outside the regular school budget. Teachers and staff apply directly; the Foundation's role is to support, augment, and enrich the excellent work already happening in Winnacunnet classrooms. The funding comes from alumni, students and their families, local businesses, and parent-teacher groups across the four sending towns.
What that has built.
Two decades on, the results are visible throughout the school. Recent Foundation-funded projects include a hydroponic farming program that grows produce for the school cafeteria while teaching agricultural engineering, plant biology, and data collection, and a Virtual Reality Innovation Lab supporting immersive learning across the curriculum. In 2024 alone, the Foundation awarded $72,000 in grants and donations.
What began as a campaign for a long overdue building renovation has become a permanent commitment to the students inside it.
What people are saying!
“The friends of Winnacunnet Foundation has been a very good resource for the high school”
— William McGowen, Principal
“The application process was easier than I thought it would be, I have a lot of experience in this process and the FoWF gave it a human touch.”
— Julie Hall
“Students worry about fundraising fatigue in the community and FoWF grants give the students a new way to bring their ideas to life.
— Melissa Shofner