Foundation resolves some major journalism funding challenges

The SHS Foundation donated upwards of $26,000 to aid the journalism program

The Saratoga High School Foundation (SHS Foundation) this fall donated $26,640 to the journalism program, helping to eradicate a debt of $13,000 that had arisen over the pandemic due to overprinting of yearbooks.

The funds will also cover the purchase of a new photography equipment for the yearbook, including cameras, lenses, and accessories, as well as the purchase of a new printer and ink.

The SHS Foundation, which provides grants to various underfunded organizations across the school, added the journalism program to the list of grants for the 2023-2024 school year.

“The board [of the SHS Foundation] recognizes that both newspaper and yearbook are so impactful and beneficial to the school as well as the community, and it’s critical to keep them going,” board president Steven Zhu said. “That’s why we decided to fund the program to relieve their financial burden.”

Zhu emphasized that the board undergoes a rigorous process to ensure grants are apportioned correctly to programs in need to maximize student benefit.

“The Foundation definitely saved us,” yearbook adviser Megan Laws said. “They gave us more peace of mind and also helped catalyze other conversations that we’re having with the administration on creating new sources of revenue.”

The deficit reset has allowed the yearbook and newspaper branches of the journalism department to pull funding from their individual reserves instead of relying on one another. The yearbook program has been raising money through sales and senior advertisements, while the newspaper has focused on increasing sales of advertisements.

Senior yearbook photographer Andy Jiang considers the additional purchase of digital cameras to be a worthwhile investment toward picture quality for the yearbooks.

“The wear and tear was evident for all of the old cameras,” Jiang said. “The new cameras have better lenses which allow me to get higher quality images, so the foundation’s donation was essential in maintaining yearbook quality.”