Art of the dodge: Foundation's big event, raises dollars for West Feliciana schools (2024)

Blue Cross attorney Laura Bryan was preparing to play dodgeball for the first time in close to 20 years and found she didn't have the throwing arm that she once did.

So, Bryan took on a specialized role with her coed dodgeball team this spring when she and other parents in West Feliciana Parish schools formed their team,the Pepper Brooks Wrench Dodgers, for a fundraising tournament in St. Francisville.

Bryan, whohad last played dodgeball as a high school teacher in her early 30s,became a frontline pawn who would free up the team's shooters behind her.

"My strategy was to kind of draw some throws and maybe try to catch one and knock somebody out, but to kind of be the front line and let our guys that throw, you know, knock people out," she said. "So, pretty much every round I got knocked out, which was fine. You know, it was fun."

The St. Francisville dodgeball tournament has been an important fundraiser for the West Feliciana Education Foundation since its creation in 2015.

The nonprofit raises money for the highly rated rural school system of nearly 2,200 students north of Baton Rouge, trying to fill in gaps for teachers and students with grants and scholarships and inspire volunteerism in the process.

Brandy Brecheen Fournet, board president of the foundation, said the nonprofit was formed as parents realized the system couldn't fully fund all its needs with tax revenue and recognized that teachers often come out of pocket for their own classroom initiatives.

"So, some parents here thought it would be a great opportunity to give back. We had a great school system. We just knew there are needs," Brecheen Fournet said.

Brecheen Fournet said the foundation's founders started small by asking teachers and administrators what their needs were, came up with a list and then formed ideas on how to raise the dollars. The group also decided to give teachers and administrators annual competitive innovation grants for up to $2,000.

In addition to the annual dodgeball tournaments, the foundation has tried other fundraising efforts, including encouraging students to paint on five-inch-by-five-inch tiles for a future commemorative structure to be installed potentially in the playground at the two-year-old Bains Elementary School.

The foundation has raised more than $150,000 for the school system over the years, including $23,000 from thetournament on the tennis courts at West Feliciana Sports Park this spring,Brecheen Fournet said.

About $16,000 to $20,000 goes to teachers each year.

Brecheen Fournet said the program has also financed or helped sponsor a middle school trophy case, band uniforms, academic competitions, benches at an elementary school playground, guest speakers, teacher welcome and annual educator awards banquets, the Reading Council anthology, football team safety equipment, a school debate team trip to Washington, D.C., and others.

Schools Superintendent Hollis Milton said the nonprofit has kept his district's schools on the cutting edge. He said supporting educational foundations like West Feliciana's are more common in larger urban districts.

"It is such a unique organization in a rural area that does such great work," he said.

Milton pointed to the flexible furniture the group helped finance several years ago for the new Bains Elementary. A shift from traditional desks, the furniture was designed to bring students together in groups and make it easier for teachers to foster collaborative, problem-solving assignments.

"You could see how the furniture really made teachers' lives easier" by facilitating the creation of student groupings, he said.

While the foundation has delivered on many school system needs, it's also relied on a sense of humor and fun to inspire parent and volunteer interest in the district.

Played by generations of students in physical education class, dodgeball, the martial game of hit-or-be-hit by flying balls from opposing teams, has filled that role for the foundation neatly.

The tournament made a comeback this March after a multiyear hiatus following COVID. The quest for the golden hippo trophy drew 18 teams this year, including one with Superintendent Milton.

Inspired by the classic Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn 2004 comedy, "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story," tournament calls for teams to have thematic costumes, as the teams outlandishly did in the movie, and has given rise to many inside movie references and not-so-subtle double entendre.

For instance, Bryan's team's name, the "Pepper Brooks Wrench Dodgers," comes from a combination of a cult-favorite character in the movie and comments made by the mentor of Vince Vaughn's dodgeball team and erstwhile dodgeball legend, Patches O'Houlihan, who was played by actor Rip Torn.

O'Houlihantold the team that if they could dodge a wrench, they could dodge a ball and proceeded to throw wrenches at them as part of their pretournament training.

Played by actor Jason Bateman, Pepper Brooks is a daft fictional EPSN color man who helps announce the dodgeball tournament that Vaughn's team wins. With some of the movie's most quoted lines, Brooks has a hilarious talent for stating the inappropriate and the obvious.

Other teams' names among the competitors this year included Austin & the Heine’s, Game of Throws, BSF Ballers, Balls to the Wall, Pepper Brooks and Not Just Tennis. The team awarded best name was the West Feliciana Parish Sheriff's Office team, Pigs in a Blanket.

A team of Bains Elementary teachers didn't win the tournament but won the look.

Known as the Bains Bling Team, the teachers were outfitted with thick gold chains, sparkles, pink bandannas and other attire and took top prize.

"I just thought 'cause we needed to be shiny and stand out," said Sarah Fudge, a fifth-grade teacher who has taught at Bains Elementary for 32 years.

She said participating in the tournament— and practices at school beforehand— gave students an opportunity to see their teachers in a different light and to throw balls at them and allowed the members of her team to show their spirit for the school.

Fudge said her team didn't last long in the tournament, but, according to the tournament organizers, looked good doing it.

She said the foundation tournament helps draw in additional people to support the school system beyond the traditional groups of volunteers and is another example of the community-mindedness of small-town West Feliciana.

"It amazes me every day what we do for each other," Fudge said.

"We've got big hearts here," she said.