New director to lead Cloquet Ed Foundation

Jody Acers is a familiar face at the Cloquet Educational Foundation, having served on its board for at least nine years - two of them as president - and worked hand-in-hand with founding director Lorna Mangen for years.

Now Acers will step into a new role at CEF: as its executive director. She is a Cloquet High School 1986 alumna and parent of two CHS graduates, Emily and Andy.

Acers is replacing outgoing director Jeannie Kermeen, who is leaving after three years to work as the director of customized training at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College.

Acers praised Kermeen's remarkable organization skills and said she certainly helped building upon "the foundation for the Foundation" laid by the organization's first director, Lorna Mangen, in the decades that she was there.

"The transition has been seamless," Acers said, noting that the pair overlapped their tenures for three weeks to make sure things went well. "Now I am ready to get going."

Both women praised the "phenomenal" board of directors at CEF and the mission of the organization.

According to the Ed Foundation website, the roots of CEF were established in the early 1980s when financial troubles plagued the Cloquet public school district. Major layoffs and reduced programs and extracurricular activities were only some of the problems that the district faced. Leaders from the school district and community stepped in to find new ways to raise money and support the programs facing cuts.

The group's first focus was on extracurricular activities. In 1984, with an initial pledge of $50,000 from the Potlatch Corporation, they formed the Cloquet extracurricular activities fund, with the goal of funding activities for preschool and school-aged students. As the needs changed, the Cloquet Educational Foundation changed its name and broadened its mission to include more academic and learning programs for children.

With the help of donations from Cloquet alumni, school district staff members, organizations, residents and friends, the Foundation's total assets have grown to more than $1 million. In 2018, CEF funded more than $77,000 in grant requests from Cloquet school teachers and to give students opportunities that might not otherwise be possible.

The money goes toward everything from field trips to the Twin Cities to watch a play or go to an art exhibit, to extracurriculars such as Science Fair and Destination Imagination, to resident artists who visit schools to share their talents, and much more.