Join your Dunwoody friends and Rotarians from all eight clubs in the DeKalb Rotary Council next Friday - March 31 - to recognize teachers and their role in making a difference in our communities. We will also honor Rotarians from those clubs for their achievements. Thiis meeting replaces our regular Friday meeting (no meeting at Le Meridien), and will be held at Georgia Piedmont Technical College DeKalb Conference Center, 495 N Indian Creek Dr., Clarkston, GA 30021. Festivities begin at 7:00 am.

As part of the program, we have an amazing speaker: Paige Buzbee Pushkin, Executive Director of the Georgia Foundation for Public Education (GFPE) and the foundation’s first full time staff person.  (The GFPE was formed in 2010 by an act of the state legislature and has as its mission “educational excellence for Georgia’s students.”)  As such, she has been responsible for building the infrastructure, brand, and board, as well as casting the strategic vision and operationalizing it.

In 2018, in collaboration with the GFPE board, they established the Rural Education Fund (REF) grant awarding up to $5,000 each to schools and school districts with 35,000 or fewer residents.  In 2021, the Governor signed legislation merging the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement’s Innovation Foundation Fund into the GFPE bringing with it the PEACH Education Tax Credit benefiting public schools statewide. Paige is most excited about this work as it is getting resources into traditionally under-resourced areas and helping to provide a more level playing field.

Having always served in the nonprofit sector, most recently Paige was the Sr. Director of Corporate Development for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta, tasked with raising $3.2 million annually from corporate donors and through 20 annual events.  Passionate about service and life-long learning, Paige has a 25-year career in the nonprofit sector predominantly in the adult education space having worked at Literacy Action, Cobb Literacy Council, and World Relief where she taught English as a Second Language to refugees.  Paige also taught English as a Foreign Language in Karaganda, Kazakstan for over 2 years.

Paige has a Master’s Degree in Intercultural Studies and Teaching English as a Second Language from Wheaton College.  She obtained her B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing from the University of Central Florida. She loves building relationships and helping people envision how their investment in the non-profit sector can literally make the world a better place.  She lives in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia and enjoys healthy living through yoga and exercise, cooking nourishing foods, reading good books and traveling to new places. As we shared before, Paige participated in a Rotary cultural exchange program in Argentina about 11 years ago, and is excited to be joining us to celebrate "Service Above Self."

Paige will be introduced by our own Honorary Member Buzz Law. a Certified Financial Planner™ practitioner is President of Creative Financial Group Ltd., a premier planning firm in Atlanta where he counsels affluent individuals and their families on comprehensive financial, estate, investment, and tax planning matters since 1984. Buzz is the founder of Creative Financial Group, which became a subsidiary of Synovus Corporation in February 2001. Buzz serves or has served on the University of Georgia Alumni Board of Directors and the Advisory Board for the Dekalb County School Systems Academy of Finance. He is involved with the United Way,Resource Development Committee, Atlanta Habitat for Humanity Advisory Committee and Financial Planning Association (FPA) since 1985. Buzz is a 25-year member of the Rotary Club of Dunwoody with 22 years of perfect attendance and has been an honorary member since 2022. He is active in the Big Canoe community.