KINGSVILLE, Texas — The Santa Gertrudis Independent School District was on the receiving end of a huge donation from an unlikely place; the MacKenzie Scott Foundation.
Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott — the ex-wife of Amazon owner Jeff Bezos — has been giving away a few billion dollars of her fortune to charities, organizations, and schools across the country.
On Friday, Santa Gertrudis ISD officials announced they were one of the latest school districts to be impacted by her generosity, receiving $1.5 million from her foundation.
"We are beyond excited," SGISD Superintendent Veronica Alfaro said about receiving the donation. "We are blessed and just grateful that we would even be considered for it."
Alfaro said at first, they received an email from the foundation and thought it was spam mail or a scam. However, the foundation sent out a few more emails and even called the district.
After careful consideration, district officials decided to take a phone conference with the foundation's representative, and they were shocked by what they were told.
"My understating, it was random. I don't know how she or they knew about SGISD or where that came from," she said. "We were just like 'wow this is really happening (...) It's very big for little Santa Gertrudis, the $1.5 million. It's definitely a lot of money (for us)."
Alfaro said district officials are unsure what they are going to do with the money right now, but they know whatever they decide will be for the betterment of the district.
"There's a lot of things that we would love to do, but it's going to depend on what we as a district decide, moving forward, what to do with the funds," she said. "We definitely got a lot of ideas brewing, and we'll see where we proceed."
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