Current Events

• SUMMERWEEK 2008 Description and applications are now available online.

Our History

         THE HAYES FOUNDATION was created in 1982 to provide educationaort to intellectually gifted children living in Rutland County, Vermont.  The Foundation’s organizing concept originated from the wishes and initial financial bequest of Walter Hayes, Jr., and his mother, Beulah Buffum Hayes, both of whom were educators from the Rutland area, with a shared concern for identifying and nourishing the special gifts of highly capable children. 
The early years of the Foundation’s work in Rutland County emphasized carrying out after supper-school enrichment programs and activities for area children, using local instructors.  Close consultation with parents and offering need-based financial grants enabled the Foundation to encourage those children with demonstrated capabilities to undertake more intensive learning experiences. 

Careful observation of participants’ performance in these early programs became the basis for planning and designing the Foundation’s own SUMMERWEEK  camp programs, which attempt to appeal to a wide range of interests and learning styles among capable young students.  Each year especially successful campers are encouraged to go on to try more intensive and challenging learning experiences such as those listed under SUMMER STUDY GRANTS.

In the years since those first programs of the 1980’s, some hundreds of Rutland County children have been provided with educational experiences and financial support for their learning endeavors..