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The tragic March 1 stabbing at Santa Rosas Montgomery High School drew in-depth and widespread news coverage.

Among the many articles, a few, including from the Press Democrat and KRON 4, highlighted a national nonprofit organization, The Uvalde Foundation for Kids, that was offering support to students, staff and parents and launching an independent investigation into the incident.

In the wake of campus shootings or threats or student suicide around the country over the past few months, local news outlets have similarly featured the foundation. Many of the stories include links to the organizations website or a phone number for its 24/7 crisis intervention hotline, but theyre short on details about the group's qualifications to handle such complex tasks on a very sensitive subject.

With that in mind, I took a closer look at the organization, and this is what I found.

According to its website, The Uvalde Foundation for Kids aims to end school violence across the nation through a wide array of no-cost programs and services.

Among its offerings: volunteer school patrol teams, student anti-violence training, a performing arts program, an anti-bullying program, a motivational speaker network, school safety training, an internet watchdog group, scholarships, emergency aid grants and awards and the 24/7 peer support and crisis intervention hotline.

Its an admirable though ambitious undertaking for any organization, let alone one that was officially created less than a year ago.

The founder, Daniel Bodhi Chapin, was inspired to create the organization after the May 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. After the tragedy, the Temple, Texas-based Chapin organized walks to raise awareness about school violence, a campaign that led him to establish the foundation.

When I spoke to Chapin, he told me he was flying out to Santa Rosa to meet with some parents in the community. The organizations investigation would be based on interviews and police reports and would include a six-month history and a six-month improvement plan that would be presented to the school board, he said.

Our organization is focused on the long-term, Chapin said. We want to be solutions-based so the students can feel safe, and they deserve that.

Vanessa Wedderburn, public information officer for Santa Rosa City Schools, said the school received an email from the organization but does not plan to respond, citing an article that cast some doubts on the group.

Originally from California, Chapin said hes worked with at-risk youth in various capacities since 1992. He has an eclectic and eccentric background, as an educator, community organizer, Christian gospel singer, and the founder of a now-closed performing arts school.

The foundation website, too, has some eccentricities, with its odd image choices and capitalization. Some of the board members listed have little internet presence and many have the same administrator email address.

The IRS granted the organization 501(c)(3) status as a public charity as of July. Its an easy status to achieve, though there are many charitable endeavors that dont even do that. Its too soon for the required yearly transparency filings to be posted.

The foundation is also properly registered with the Texas Secretary of State. There is one open consumer complaint against it with the Texas Office of the Attorney General, but details arent publicly available.

I spoke with a few board members who also help facilitate some of the organizations programs. Each was invited to join by Chapin and had full-time workloads outside the foundation. They were open and willing to talk, friendly and seemed committed to giving back to their communities.

Still, there appeared to be little formal structure to programs offered; there is no set curriculum or trainings or a means of tracking success.

Michael Stevens, president of the Uvalde Foundation for Kids, said that since the organization is still so small and new, collaborations with schools or students are done on a case-by-case basis. Because theyre mostly localized to a few places at this point, programs are manageable to oversee and updates can be accomplished through weekly board briefing calls.

Well obviously have to reevaluate how we run everything as we continue to grow, Stevens said. That's definitely something that we've discussed.

He acknowledged theyd have to pare down to core activities and develop training if they get bigger, but for now, theyre testing out different ideas.

Currently, he said, each initiative is run by a local volunteer with specific expertise and experience, including education, law enforcement and military and counseling. Core volunteers can recruit others.

See the rest here:
A deep dive into the Uvalde Foundation for Kids - The Santa Rosa Press Democrat