Taffae Family Foundation Announces Challenge Grant
April Fools Day - This day was perhaps Joen Bettmann’s favorite day, a day of funny pranks, playful jokes, and happy wisecracks. It was a day she would revel in, embrace and celebrate the joy of life.
Joen would have been thrilled that today is also the day The Taffae Family Foundation (www.taffaefamilyfoundation.org) is announcing its challenge grant in honor of Joen. The Taffae Family Foundation will match every dollar donated to The Joen Bettmann Primary Training of Trainers Fund (The Fund) dollar for dollar up to $25,000 between today and the end of the year. Already, one generous donor has contributed $2,500 (10 percent) to The Fund.
As part of her legacy, Joen established The Fund with proceeds from the sale of her Montessori materials after ending her illustrious training career. Knowing how arduous it was and is for trainers in training to complete their coursework, she wanted to ease the financial burden as best she could. Working on her behalf, her husband Art Krasilovsky joined with Montessori Global Growth Fund to initiate The Fund, finalizing all the paperwork and depositing Joen’s funds on May 1, 2020, the day Joen died.
Now The Taffae Family Foundation has taken up her cause. Their mission is “To enhance and encourage inclusion no matter one's race, color, sexual preference, gender (past, present, or future), religious beliefs, intellectual or mental challenges, or country of origin.” As they note in their Objective, “Our objective is to maximize resources for the greatest return in fulfilling Our Mission. … “our preference is investing in ongoing endeavors which allow for a longer-term impact.” This certainly matches Joen’s objective for her fund.
And now it our turn to join with The Taffae Foundation and Joen. A gift from you will multiply exponentially around the globe as future primary trainers educate teachers/guides who in turn help children achieve their full potential. Give generously and know you’re supporting Joen’s legacy as well as that of The Taffae Family Foundation.
P.S. Here is one of Joen’s April Fools Day jokes, courtesy of her husband Art. Enjoy.
I believe it is safe to say that the best joke Joen did is one she did on a colleague who she worked with in the same building. This colleague, who shall remain nameless, brought a sandwich everyday to work for lunch which his wife faithfully prepared. On this particular day, Joen added an extra piece of food to the sandwich which she slipped in when he was out of the office for a few minutes. I seem to believe she arranged to have a lunch time meeting with him so that she could revel in her prank. At the beginning of the meeting, they brought out their lunches and he took a bite of the sandwich and he struggled. And struggled. And struggled. He was unable to complete his bite into the sandwich but didn’t say a word. Just kept on biting. At some point, he gasped and perhaps started complaining how stale something was in the sandwich. I can’t recall the exact details whether Joen just laughed out loud or what, but he discovered there was a rubber piece of meat in the sandwich. It’s safe to say the meeting was unproductive.