In early January the Manson American Legion, Post 108 sponsored a “Teacher Grant” program, offering four $250 Grants available to all teachers in the Manson School District. This funding could be used for anything that would benefit students. This was a great opportunity to secure items not included in the school’s budget.
The process to apply for a grant was kept simple. Teachers were directed to complete a one-page application and include a 250 word or less paper explaining how the funding would be used and the number of students who would benefit.
Due date for Grant applications was January 29. From there Post 108’s Teacher Grant Committee reviewed applications. There was a total of seven applications covering grades Pre-K-10. Committee member and Post 108 Chaplain John Swenson said, “This was a very difficult assignment as all grant applications were worthy of consideration. We did our best to rank applications and come up with the top four. We felt the remaining three should also be considered for funding.”
At Post 108’s February meeting members were brought up to speed on the “Teacher Grant” program. A discussion followed and finally a motion was made and seconded to fund the three additional Grant application at $250 each. The vote was 100% in favor!
Teachers receiving a $250 grant included:
Carman Fretwell, Resource Room – Grade level Pre-K-5. Funding to purchase games, activities and fidgets that students would be willing to work for. These items are costly but necessary to encourage, motivate and support student learning in the special education and possibly the general education setting.
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Samantha Lovelace, Life Science and Biology – Grade 8 and 10. Funding for dissecting kits for 20 students. Currently there are only eight incomplete kits and students need to share, some just get to watch.
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Brittany Sivertson, Manson SD Preschool (dual language)– Grade level- Preschool. Funding will be used to purchase quality books in Spanish to build the preschool library. A landmark report titled “Becoming a Nation of Readers” concluded that “the single most important activity for building knowledge for their eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.” These books will go toward helping countless future Manson preschoolers be successful in school.
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Mary Bider, Science – Grade 4. The purchase of small Fossil Excavations Kits. It’s difficult to work in groups during Covid. The kits would make it possible for students to work independently to discover a buried treasure of a fossil. After students find their fossils, Mary plans to have students create their own fossils using plaster of Paris and objects from nature.
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Alicia Alexander, Spanish Transitional Program – Kindergarten – Weekly reader “Let’s Find Out” in Spanish that will be sent home with students. This magazine provides at home-learning in four different easy ways, listening, reading, watching (videos) and work with pencil and paper.
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Katie Plummer, Middle School SMATH – Grade 6 through 8 – Scrabble style math game. The game helps students practice their basic numeracy as well applying numeracy to point calculation.
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Andrea Whitney, Elementary Music – Grade K-5 – Help with funding for the purchase of a xylophone. The cost of one instrument is between $566 and $1,150. This grant will help with half the funding of the instrument.
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Manson School District Superintendent Yvonne Walker was pleased that each of the applications were granted the funds. “Thank you to the American Legion of Manson. I am proud of the work taking place in the classrooms of Manson School District. These grant awards will support the outstanding staff in creating meaningful learning for all students.”
Manson Post 108 Commander Clyde McCullough said, “We are very happy to have the ability to financially help Manson teachers provide a better education for students. Assisting veterans, helping youth and giving back to our community are some of the reasons the American Legion was charted by the United States Congress in 1919.”
By Norm Manly
Post 108 Service Officer
