MARION, OH (MARION COUNTY NOW)—Marion Community Foundation’s TEACH Grants Program, which received national attention in 2023, is opening its 2024 application period, now through February 22.
Of the 16 programs funded by TEACH grants in 2023, one that stood out was River Valley Heritage Elementary’s TouchChat program for their non-verbal students. A collaboration by teachers Emily Leader and Cassy Lutz and speech language pathologist Alexis Phipps, TouchChat provided assistive language devices – specialized software on iPads — to the school’s six non-verbal students, allowing them to engage their teachers and peers in conversation in meaningful ways for the first time. The teachers adapted the program for the playground, where core boards replicated the TouchChat home screen, facilitating students’ communication during recess where taking the technology would otherwise be problematic. News of the outstanding, heartwarming program was picked up by Yahoo News as well as local media.
Marion Community Foundation’s successful TEACH Grants Program, started in 2020, is an acronym for “Teaching, Educating And Classroom Help” grants and makes awards to encourage local teachers, or small teams of classroom teachers, to develop programs, projects, events, or lessons for kindergarten through 12th grade that are interesting, innovative, stimulating, and impactful for students. Grants are intended to fund classroom programs not supported by regular school budgets.
On the Foundation’s website – www.MarionCommunityFoundation.org – teachers can find the 2024 application under the “Grants” tab, on the “Apply for a Grant” page. Any public or private school teacher who instructs children kindergarten through high school in Marion and Morrow counties (Ohio) is eligible to apply.
“Classroom teachers have great ideas and creative solutions to meet their students’ needs,” said Dean Jacob, President and CEO of Marion Community Foundation and a former teacher himself. “The TEACH Grant program can help teachers launch innovative and motivational ideas that may go unfunded because of a school’s tight budget.”
Over the past four years, the program has awarded grants for projects as diverse as the purchase of multicultural literature to online learning equipment to a drum set. TEACH Grants are made possible by funding from the Pillar Credit Union Teachers Funds, River Valley Teachers Fund, Ray & Charlotte Baldauf Fund., and Marion Education Foundation Fund.
“The Board of Pillar Credit Union was instrumental in starting the TEACH Grants Program by providing the financial support,” said Jacob. “As the concept has caught on, other donors created additional funds, like the Marion Education Foundation Fund, to support specific schools. This is our way to affirm the value of our local educators and their creative ideas.”
According to Jacob, the TEACH Grants program can make awards of up to $2,500 in Marion County and $500 in Morrow County. The decisions on how much and to whom to award grants will be made by a volunteer committee of Marion Community Foundation and its Board of Directors.
Applications for the 2024 TEACH Grants program are available on Marion Community Foundation’s website at www.marioncommunityfoundation.org and are due by February 22 at 1pm. Awards will be announced in May for the 2024-25 academic year. Updates will be available on the Foundation’s social media channels—Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Additional information is available by contacting Cheryl Wickersham at Marion Community Foundation by calling 740-387-9704 or cherylwickersham@marioncommunityfoundation.org. Marion Community Foundation is located at 504 S. State Street. Its offices are open weekdays 9 a.m.-5 p.m.