\n\tThe Stanton Community Foundation, which is a non-profit organization, serves youth, low-income individuals and families.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an effort to help the declining school budget, the foundation has had a backpack program, but this year, it offered mini-grants to school teachers and presented those to 12 teachers at a recent City Council meeting.<\/p>\n

\n\tMaking the presentations were the Foundation's president, Brian Donahue, and Vice President Elizabeth Ash.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Stanton Community Foundation, which is a non-profit organization, serves youth, low-income individuals and families.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an effort to help the declining school budget, the foundation has had a backpack program, but this year, it offered mini-grants to school teachers and presented those to 12 teachers at a recent City Council meeting.<\/p>\n

\n\tMaking the presentations were the Foundation's president, Brian Donahue, and Vice President Elizabeth Ash.<\/p>\n

\n\t"This is the first year we have offered the grants to teachers," said Donahue. "Twenty-seven teachers applied and we were able to give 12 grants, which will affect 793 students, and that is a huge success – we look forward to next year," he added.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll of the teachers expressed great gratitude for the mini-grants and there were lots of smiles.<\/p>\n

\n\t"Receiving the grant from the Stanton Community Foundation is such an honor," said Walter Elementary School teacher Jill Lungren. "I'm so pleased they considered a special education class as one of their recipients and I will be using the money to buy incentives such as toys, pencils, books, games, and prizes, to reward my students for demonstrating positive behavior."<\/p>\n

\n\tLungren said the grant alleviates the pressure on her and her family to purchase prizes out of their own pay checks.<\/p>\n

\n\t"I'm the mother of six children myself and I need every bit of my paycheck to cover my own expenses," she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tLawrence Elementary School teacher Kelly Thompson said, "I cannot thank Mrs. Ash and the Stanton Community Foundation enough for this very generous grant. I feel so supported, special and appreciated having received this wonderful grant."<\/p>\n

\n\tThompson said she teaches in a poverty-stricken area and that her students have a lot of needs that she has been trying to meet on her own each year.<\/p>\n

\n\t"Because of the SOS grant, I can afford to buy class sets of Common-Core-approved read-aloud books that will help my students fall in love with reading and become more literate and engaged in their learning," said Thompson.<\/p>\n

\n\tThompson said her teaching philosophy is to make learning fun.<\/p>\n

\n\t"The more fun you have doing something, the more you want to do it and  I want to help raise a generation of children who love to learn. This grant is helping me achieve my goal."<\/p>\n

\n\tPerhaps not everyone knows what a "spot rug" is, but ask any teacher and they'll tell you how important that rug is.<\/p>\n

\n\t"The item I will purchase is a spot rug," said teacher Angelique Darvin. "It's a well-loved but costly teacher-management tool that students can use in many ways and so with the SOS Grant I can afford that for my classroom."<\/p>\n

\n\t"I was surprised, shocked, and humbled to receive the grant; it's  a great feeling to know that our students and school have the support of the community. In this day of Common-Core, the rug will allow for organized talk-groups and sharing. The best word I can use to sum up my feelings is gratitude," added Darvin, who teaches at Lawrence Elementary School.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom its website, the program is explained in this manner: The Supply Our Schools program is said to be designed to perfectly match donors with the needs of students in under-privileged school districts.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe idea is simple: Have teachers identify the specific needs of their classrooms and let donors decide which supplies they would like purchase for donation.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe SOS process is similar to an online wedding registry, except that it's for teachers instead of brides. Teachers create supply lists specifying the supplies their student's need.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen, donors view the supply lists and "purchase" specific supplies from the lists and SOS buys the “purchased” supplies and has them delivered directly to the teacher.<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce the supplies are received, the teacher confirms they've received them, and has their students post online thank you notes, which the donor(s) can read.<\/p>\n

\n\tTeachers in any U.S. public schools can set up a supply list for their classrooms. One hundred percent of public donations received by SOS are used for purchasing school supplies and donations to Supply Our Schools, and it's a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and therefore deductible for computing income and estate taxes<\/p>\n

\n\tThe SOS program is available for public school teachers, librarians, coaches and\/or counselors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Stanton Community Foundation, which is a non-profit organization, serves youth, low-income individuals and families. In an effort to help the declining school budget, the foundation has had a backpack program, but this year, it offered mini-grants to school teachers and presented those to 12 teachers at a recent City Council meeting. Making the presentations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4175,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806\/revisions\/4175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}