If you look around Crockett Academy, the lasting marks of former assistant principal Douglas Dever are everywhere. 

Dever, an alumnus of Brackenridge High School, was an educator for 43 years. He retired from Crockett in 2007, and after his passing in 2010, left an estate gift to the SAISD Foundation for Crockett that gives the school access to unrestricted funds to use for whatever best helps the school serve the community.

Sometimes it’s spirit materials. Sometimes it’s incentives for attendance or positive behavior. Sometimes it is uniforms or extra supplies for students who need them most. The funds, managed by the SAISD Foundation, have also paid for a refrigerator for students' medications in the clinic.

The funds — $5,000 per year — are made available at the beginning of the year by design, because Dever knew that the needs are great and sometimes unexpected.

“Crockett Academy has thoroughly enjoyed the very generous yearly gifts from the Dever Fund benefit,” Crockett principal Lourdes Correa said. “Crockett has always been a good steward of this gift. This current academic school year Crockett is planning on using the funds to purchase student and staff incentives, for promoting desired behaviors, throughout the school year.”

They plan to use the funds for bus transportation for field trips, prizes for attendance, and t-shirts to promote this year’s theme, “LEVEL Up.”

The Dever Fund is just one example of legacy gifts managed by the Foundation that will benefit the district’s students long into the future.

Some recent graduates of Lanier High School, down the road from Crockett, have received scholarships investing in their higher education from a pair of alumni who are planning to gift parts of their estates with Foundation.

Armando Lopez graduated from Lanier in 1966. He attended Crockett Elementary and then Lanier from seventh grade to graduation. The president of the Lanier band and an all-state drummer, Armando credits the experiences he had at Lanier with instilling the confidence in him he would need to later join the Longhorn Band at the University of Texas at Austin. 

“I had a wonderful, fulfilling experience at both Crockett and Lanier,” Armando said. “Music was the most influential experience. It gave me a link to attend the University of Texas and made the transition to college easier.” 

Another major influence on his education was the George W. Brackenridge Foundation scholarship that Armando received. “That scholarship was really pivotal, really foundational, not only in my attending college, but in my realizing later on that someone, a total stranger, gave me money to have a better life, than I might have otherwise experienced. It makes my wife and me feel good and consequential in paying forward the gift.” 

Armando and his wife, Ana, have already given two named scholarships to students graduating from Lanier, both managed through the Foundation. 

“We were so pleased with how the Foundation handled it, the selection they made, and the follow up,” Armando said. “We’d occasionally hear from the students.” 

After the experience of funding the first of two scholarships through the Foundation, the Lopezes made the decision to leave a portion of their estate to the Foundation, to guarantee they are investing in education in the Lanier community for many years to come.  

“Living in a Hispanic community showed me the needs and gave me an appreciation of what could be done,” Armando said. “Living and seeing that, led me to focus my efforts in the Hispanic community and Lanier. Both of us worked hard for our money, and we wanted to make certain our estate would be used to accomplish our goals of helping young Hispanics.” 

A portion of the annual Lopez gift will continue to support Lanier students in their college journey through their named multi-year scholarship and emergency gap funds, while another portion of the estate gift will provide an annual donation to Lanier to support student programming needs at the campus.  Their estate gifts are set to be endowments that produce income to support these purposes for years in the future.

Many legacy gifts are designed as endowments. Because the impact of these gifts is from the investment interest each year and the principal of the gift is never touched, endowment gifts impact students and schools in SAISD forever. These gifts can be made from a donor’s current assets, as a pledge paid over time, or as a part of an estate gift from future assets.

Satisfied with his options in giving through the Foundation, Mr. Lopez then posed friend Sam Rodriguez with the idea of planned giving through Foundation.

Sam Rodriguez, who graduated from Lanier in 1961 and his wife, Genevieve Enriquez, a 1962 graduate, had long been supporters of student scholarships through the Chili Bowl Gala — another fund managed through the Foundation. The Rodriguezes also came up through the schools in the Lanier feeder pattern, enjoying their time in band as well — Sam on drums and Genevieve a majorette. 

Lanier was recognized as having the best drum sections in the city, a reputation that continued for many years. Sam earned the distinction of being the best drummer in the state of Texas. As a result, he was offered numerous scholarships throughout the country for his talent as a drummer. 

Genevieve, on the other hand, also received a scholarship for scholastic achievements. She was granted the honor of giving the graduation speech for her class. The scholarships they received as a result of their labor made it possible to attend college. This made it possible to get great government jobs in Washington, D.C.  Sam and Genevieve were offered jobs with the United States Postal Service. Sam accepted a job running a post office in Alexandria, Virginia, and Genevieve accepted the position with the Postal Service as Manager of Federal Retirement Programs in Washington, D.C. Although it uprooted both from their families, they both agree that it was the best thing that could have ever happened to them. 

Genevieve and Sam say they consider themselves very blessed and want to make sure they share the fruits of their labor with others that may not have been afforded the same opportunities.

Now retired with grown children and grandchildren, Genevieve and Sam want to pour back into the district that provided them with the foundation that made it all possible. 

As a result, they decided to make the Foundation a partial beneficiary of their life insurance policies. Their funds will support Lanier through the already established Bernal Lanier Endowment, the first endowment to be managed by the Foundation and gifted by former senator, Lanier alumnus and longtime educator and education advocate Joe Bernal. They hope other alumni will follow suit.

“A lot of alumni don’t realize they can leave some of their money to the Foundation,” Sam Rodriguez said. “You don’t have to leave it all. You can just leave part of your life insurance and still help a lot of students.”