Our Vision
Whether as a student, parent, volunteer, teacher, or community worker, we invite you to reconnect to the communal fire by sharing your heartbeat through a memory or narrative. Our vision is to build a bridge to a community story, in the form of a book, that has purpose and integrity—the legacy of the Foundry school. With over 8000 students having walked through the door, the story is vast and we know it is best told by those who have lived it. We need your story to complete the soul map of the Foundry journey. Let others learn what you learned since there is no longer a school to welcome them.
ABOUT US
For thirty years, the Foundry was well classified as an alternative school. It was not a continuation school, nor an incarceration school, and certainly not a mainstream high school. It was a school for kids in trouble, kids who were troubled, and kids who dropped out or had been expelled from mainstream schools.
The primary goal of the Foundry was to heal young people who were emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually wounded and damaged. It was a therapeutic program where students and families healed.
Students found great success by being challenged at the Foundry academically through classes and homework, physically through physical education and field trips (including hikes, surfing, rock climbing, running, and much more), and emotionally through group work.
Much of the Foundry work took place in the form of a group circle. They were taught to value themselves and the community around them through volunteer work, and by learning from the school’s numerous and diverse volunteers. Although the school was forced to close its doors in 2005, the spirit of the Foundry lives on in the lives of those who experienced it.
