When Ruth Sedaker received her economic stimulus check from the government in March she never expected what she saw. She thought the amount must be wrong. When she initially filed her taxes she expected to receive only $300, but what she saw instead of a 3 was a `6.`
And even though many taxpayers spent their checks paying down credit cards and purchasing new big-ticket items like plasma televisions, Sedaker took a different route. Sedaker purchased three memorial bricks for her grandchildren, all recent graduates of Schenectady Christian School.
`I thought the government was so nice to give us this money, and I said ‘Why don’t I share it with my family?’` Sedaker said.
In addition to the bricks Sedaker recently purchased for her grandchildren, Sedaker also had bricks placed for her husband, who died in 2004; her three daughters, who are all nurses; her grandson, who is also deceased; and herself, a retired Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake bus driver.
The bricks are sold by the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake Education Foundation and are displayed in the gymnasium plaza entrance of the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake High School.
There are more than 450 bricks displayed near the plaza. They are engraved with various sayings and names.
The Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake Education Foundation is an organization that provides money to schools in the district to complete projects that are not budgeted by the Board of Education.
`When you sit on the school board and watch a budget get formed then you think of all the things you would like to do,` said Dorie McArthur, who started the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake Education Foundation in 1999.
McArthur said typically teachers or student groups place a request with the foundation for grant money and, through fundraisers, the foundation provides the grants. In less than 10 years, the foundation has given out more than $75,000 in grants to schools in the district.
McArthur said in past years the foundation has awarded grants for the purchase of buzzers for the Science Olympiad team and money for the purchase of high-resolution projectors in addition to other grants for pilot programs. McArthur said sometimes teachers want to test programs before they purchase them and grants from the foundation allow for this testing.
`It’s a pleasure to be in schools and see these things in place,` McArthur said.
The education foundation board is made up of several people from retired school officials to interested community members.
Bricks are available in three sizes from the education foundation and are engraved by AJ Fine Company of Burnt Hills by retired school board member Wayne Wheeler.
To order bricks, visit the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake Education Foundation Web site at http://library.bhbl.neric.org/edfoun/index.html or call McArthur at 399-9050.
Sedaker first purchased a brick for her grandson who died in a snowmobile accident several years ago after seeing a sign while voting outside one of the schools advertising the brick sales.
At 87, she is more like an energetic teenager ` she volunteers at the Baptist Retirement Center and goes swimming in the afternoons at the YMCA.
Sedaker moved to Burnt Hills in 1950 and lived on Pashley Road in Ballston for 47 years before buying a mobile home in Florida with her husband where she would winter spending her summers in Ballston. She decided to become a bus driver when her youngest daughter reached the third grade and she wanted to keep busy. Sedaker worked for the school for more than 19 years, where she was known as the `Bus Mom.`
`The kids were great,` she said. `I loved everyone of them.`
Sedaker still keeps in touch with several of her former students through Christmas cards and periodic visits.
At the retirement home, and really everywhere else around town, Sedaker is known for her loving ways.
`I don’t wear lipstick,` she said. `I’m always giving kisses.“
