A well-known Wichita organization celebrates a grant and a new name

The Fundamental Learning Center has two new achievements to celebrate, one that’s perhaps no surprise, and one that took quite a bit of arm-twisting.

First, the center, which teaches children with dyslexia and their educators, has met a $2 million Mabee Foundation challenge grant — a significant step in a $20 million capital campaign to build a new campus at the northeast corner of 143rd and Central. The grant allows for a groundbreaking this year.

Michael Goeke, executive director of the J.E. and L.E. Mabee Foundation, said that from the beginning of the challenge grant, “You just kind of got the feeling it was going to happen.”

He credits Jeanine Phillips, the center’s co-founder and executive director.

“Jeanine Phillips was so passionate about it, it was hard to imagine she wasn’t going to help bring it home,” Goeke said.

“Day one I thought we’d achieve it,” Phillips said.

With the pandemic, though, over the summer months she started to worry.

“That was the part that kept me up at night.”

As she met with people, and they heard the center’s mission, Phillips said people’s reactions gave her hope “that I kept holding onto.”

That leads to the second major achievement. Finally, after years of trying to honor Phillips in various ways, which she’s always declined, the center’s board successfully convinced her to rename the organization the Phillips Fundamental Learning Center.

“I can’t emphasize enough how much she’s given to the organization,” said Gretchen Andeel, who founded the center with Phillips in 2000.

Andeel said she was very involved for the first seven or so years, but Phillips has “just continued to do it. It amazes me.”

She said Phillips takes no compensation and instead donates her salary to the center.

“Jeanine’s been there 100 percent of the time,” Andeel said. “And she’s so darn smart.”

Phillips said “it’s an honor for sure,” not only for herself but her husband, Bill, and their son, Cooper, who has profound dyslexia and is the reason Phillips pursued the center after meeting Andeel, who offered Phillips help when she couldn’t find it elsewhere.

Goeke said Phillips is a unique leader for a unique organization, and that’s part of what interested the Mabee Foundation.

He said the foundation grants up to 160 challenge grants a year.

The idea behind making the grants challenges is all about building broader support for organizations.

Goeke said the challenge is about raising money and increasing “their support in a longer-term, bigger-picture sort of way.”

The center had to raise $5.8 million by Jan. 14 of this year to receive the challenge grant.

Goeke said it’s never a guarantee from the start if an organization will succeed in meeting a challenge grant, but he said the center was “well organized. They had a good start on their fundraising.”

“That’s one of the things we assess.”

The center raised $10 million through a quiet campaign it started more than two years ago.

Now, it has not quite $2 million left to raise in its overall campaign.

The current school at 2220 E. 21st Street North accommodates 60 students. The new one will have 120 students.

The new building will be heavily influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright’s design principles and by an actual rendering he made for a building at Wichita State University that was never built.

Though Phillips said she’s honored to have her family’s name be part of the organization’s name, she said she never got involved to receive recognition.

“There’s just something about having a life mission at this level that you feel is part of why you’re on this earth.”