Posted July 11, 2022
The Plymouth Education Foundation awarded eight mini-grants totaling $3,618 to Plymouth School District educators during the 2021-22 school year.
Introduced in 2019, mini-grants are available in amounts up to $500. Faculty and staff are able to apply using a simple application as needs arise. Applications are accepted year round, until $5,000 has been awarded. To date, approximately $13,000 has been awarded in 30 different mini-grants.
Like the foundation’s major grants, the goal of the mini-grants is to enhance the educational experience for students in the Plymouth School District by inspiring innovation, forming strategic partnerships, and creatively engaging students at all levels.
Applicant: Kay Tharp
Impact: Plymouth High School
Amount: $500
Peers 4 Peers is painting 13 bathrooms to help increase energy, pride, awareness, connection, and involvement within the student body. In addition to benefitting students, members of the community who utilize the bathrooms will be able to appreciate that that they were created by student artists.
Applicant: Sandy Lemahieu
Impact: Riverview Middle School
Amount: $500
New books are awarded to students as they are “caught” making the choice to read during their free time. Getting kids to read on their own is an effective way to help improve district reading scores.
Applicants: Tina Helmer and Robin Hoopman
Impact: Fairview and Horizon elementary schools
Amount: $428
These 10 lessons focus on identifying adversity and resilience, coping strategies, decision making, goal setting and positive social connections. The lessons were introduced to targeted groups of third- and fourth-grade students experiencing at-risk factors such as school absenteeism, limited peer/school connections, and low academic performance. The goal is that by increasing internal assets, schools can help counter some of the external factors.
Applicant: Madalyn Brown
Impact: Fairview Elementary School
Amount: $400
Students were provided with sensory materials for word work practice, which enabled them to use individualized word lists at their own personal level to form words in various ways.
Applicant: Tanya Strauss
Impact: Riverview Middle School
Amount: $500
Books were made available to teachers for book clubs, guided reading, and individual students. Increasing the number of books available and the variety of topics is a great way to increase reading skills and promote the enjoyment of reading for middle-school students.
Applicant: Andrew Arentsen
Impact: Horizon Elementary School
Amount: $479
Extra ski poles were purchased for the already successful ski club at Horizon.
Applicant: Jack Daniels
Impact: Plymouth High School
Amount: $500
The grant helped build a classroom library of sets of interesting statistics books used for literature circles and book clubs after students have taken the Advanced Placement test.
• Visit the Plymouth Education Foundation grants page.
