By Carol Stuart | Pagosa Springs Rotary Club
Congratulations, Kara Assid, Linda Lutomski, Becca Gartman, Angela Reali-Crossland, Amanda Schweitzer, Katrina Thomas, Malinda Burnett, Dale Scrivener, Carrie Steadman and Lynell Wiggers.
The Pagosa Springs Rotary Club Teacher Mini Grant program is a long-standing annual program for our club, and this year was no different.
Twelve applications were received from seven different schools and 10 teachers were selected. We are so fortunate to have such innovative creative teachers with the desire to inspire and expand the learning opportunities for our children.
Some of the educational and fun projects we were able to fund include robots for programming and coding; cardio drum storage; assistive technology for special needs students to enable better communication; a Cricut maker and supplies for students to design, produce and sell items for the school spirit; reusable Gelli plates for printmaking projects now and in the future; materials to construct terrariums for small critters as part of learning science; and materials to construct costumes for a school production. To make our available funds go to as many teachers as possible, we chose to partially fund some requests and suggest other community resources to others.
The mini grant program awards a limited number of grants with a maximum award of $400 for special classroom projects to individual teachers in kindergarten through 12th grade in Archuleta County. The mini grant provides working capital to innovative teachers who want to develop new ideas to enrich the student classroom experience. The mini grants also provide funds to teachers for materials or projects that would not otherwise be available through the school district or for teachers who would have to use their own money to fund them.
The teacher mini grants are just one of the many community service projects that are funded through the Pagosa Rotary Community Assistance Fund, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The majority of the funds come through business partnerships. It also provides for the scholarships to graduating seniors.
The Rotary Club of Pagosa Springs is proud to support our wonderful teachers who have worked so hard to excite and educate our children, especially the past two years.
