The CAS/Dr. Kim Stacher Scholarship Fund was created in 2011 by Community Action Southwest (CAS) and Dr. Kim Stacher to provide scholarships to financially needy graduating seniors of any high school located in Washington or Greene County. Preference is given to former students of the CAS Head Start Program.
The CAS Head Start Program provides a developmentally appropriate pre-school education to approximately 800 children from families who live below the poverty line.
Dr. Stacher became involved with CAS through his dental practice, treating the children participating in Head Start. Supporting CAS’s education strategy of building community capacity to ensure all low-income children have access to high quality education, he sought a way to help create lasting change for these disadvantaged children. Through pledges, sponsorships, and donations, he worked diligently to raise the money necessary to establish a scholarship at the Community Foundation. Dr. Stacher even ran in the grueling Bad Water Marathon (in which participants take a 135-mile journey through Death Valley and up the slopes of Mount Whitney) to garner support—seeing this physical challenge as an opportunity to help former Head Start students gain access to postsecondary education.