AUSTIN SKYLINE FOUNDATION

Educational Services

In the academic area, the Foundation seeks to contribute to an increasingly rich and multicultural American education for its community members in a broad variety of ways. The Foundation intends to provide expansive educational programming in the future and intends to support education in the community in the following ways:

Aiding schools (including universities, community colleges, and secondary schools) in establishing Turkish language programs. The Foundation provides support to schools ranging from finding qualified instructors to furnishing schools with materials.
The Foundation’s aspires to eventually provide financial assistance in the form of college scholarships to young adults who may not have the resources to access higher education without financial assistance. Candidates eligible to receive financial support are young adults who have a demonstrated need for funds related to higher education. Prospective recipients must demonstrate that they are committed to using the funds for the intended purpose of education. Candidates will submit applications detailing their background and need for the funds and may possibly be required to attend an interview with a representative of the Foundation. The Foundation will select as many recipients as possible to fund each year. The Foundation will attempt to directly pay funds to higher education institutions when possible. Occasionally, funds could be used to directly reimburse recipients for verified costs of tuition, books, supplies, and/or fees after being provided receipts demonstrating the purchases. The Foundation maintains a verification program to follow up with recipients to monitor the appropriate use of the funds.
After school opportunities for local youth, including tutoring, emotional development and reading and support services. In addition, retreats and diverse programming will be provided to area youth.

Cultural Services

The Foundation seeks to offer cultural services in a wide variety of opportunities to both its community and the general public. Some of these opportunities would include:

Cuisine classes: Introducing culinary culture developed from the era of the Ottoman Empire. These classes are open to community members of all ages and are great to take as a family or with friends. With its experience in cuisine classes and experienced instructors, the Foundation can also provide culinary courses or after school cuisine programs at schools.
Art classes: the Foundation can introduce traditional Turkic arts such as Ebru. Ebru is the name of Ottoman water marbling art, which is based on transferring artistic designs created on water to paper, giving it a magical sense.
Turkish cultural festivals: Every year each Raindrop branch organizes a traditional Turkic Cultures Festival where a kaleidoscope of varying people from the Turkish world is showcased. Not only an educational adventure for those in attendance and involved, the Turkish Cultures Festival is an entertaining event that joins together international communities. The event includes music groups, and folk dances as well as handcrafts, calligraphy and of course delicious world renown Turkish cuisine. The Foundation collaborates with the universities and K-12 schools to feature activities that contribute to the diverse culture of America.
The Foundation values language learning and organized this event to motivate students to learn a second (or third!) language. Turkish is listed as one of the critical languages under the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI). NSLI is an interagency initiative of the Departments of State, Education, and Defense, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The initiative is designed to dramatically increase the number of Americans learning critical need foreign languages such as Turkish, Chinese, and Persian through new and expanded programs that begin in kindergarten and run throughout university and into the workforce. In order to encourage multilingualism in students as early as possible, Raindrop has been organizing the Turkish Language and Culture Olympiad with an increasing participation each year.
Friendship and Dialogue dinners: A main goal of the Foundation is to establish good relations with their neighbors. One of the events serving this goal is the Friendship and Dialogue Dinner where the Foundation supporters gather with their neighbors and community members for a friendly dinner.. We enjoy food and conversation, strengthen friendships and form a culture of “living together”. At these dinner meetings we also recognize the contributions of different personnel, institutions and organizations (e.g. fire department, police department, city members, museums, libraries, educators).
At the Foundation, family workshops we include a variety of activities for different interests so that children, teenagers and adults can come together and enjoy sports, reading, delicious meals, and more. (meetings, discussions, seminars)
The Foundation contributes to a colorful society by organizing, sponsoring and hosting cultural and social events such as Spring Picnics, traditional dinners, Turkish coffee nights, International Women’s day, soccer games, Noah’s pudding days, art exhibits Whirling Dervishes’ performances, Interfaith Academy, Ramadan dinners -- all to establish and enhance friendship ties with our neighbors and local communities and form a culture of “living together”. The Foundation ties together the vision, values, and cooperative spirit of the different communities in the southwestern states.

Charitable Efforts

The Foundation also helps those in need, and hopes to assist with all forms of aid within our means: people such as the homeless, destitute, widowers, patients, orphans, veterans, and those affected by catastrophes such as earthquakes, floods, fires, etc. These efforts aim to develop and strengthen social responsibility, solidarity, aid and consciousness and contribute to improvement of the socioeconomic level of society. The Foundation hopes to run projects in collaboration with health fairs.

The Foundation also hopes to directly support a variety of public charities. During difficult economic times, the need for nonprofit services rises, while funding decreases. Studies such as the Nationwide Research Collaborative’s Nonprofit Fundraising Study indicate that 65% of charities reported an increase in demand for services last year, but saw a decrease in fundraising results. The founders of the Foundation recognized that many nonprofit organizations struggled to keep up with demand for services. This is why the Foundation will
host a variety of community programming in order to provide funds to public charities.