The sights and sounds of drumlines, cheerleaders and celebrations filled the cafeteria at Bonham Elementary School to kick off the Bryan ISD Education Foundation 2024 Grant Patrol.
This wasn’t just any pep rally. Thursday’s Grant Patrol Kick Off event included Education Foundation members and members of the Bryan ISD Student Ambassadors, Rudder High School RangRettes and Cheerleaders, and Bryan High School Shy-Annes and Cheerleaders.
Our groups traveled to every Bryan ISD campus, giving away 56 teacher grants, totaling more than $130,000! That's a new record for the non-profit, topping last year’s total of $100,000. The funds for the teacher grants come from a variety of Education Foundation sources, including proceeds from the organization’s Hometown Reunion in August.
Three groups split up to visit every campus and surprise at least one grant winner at each campus. Some grants benefitted particular classrooms, while others were written to benefit an entire grade or even the whole school.
Monica Thompson, a kindergarten teacher at Bonham, received a grant that will make writing more fun for her students, including one who is blind.
“Writing’s one of the tools and areas where most kids kind of struggle with fine motors,” Thompson said. “I wrote a grant to help with some activities where I can get my kids to make writing fun, and at this age they’re like sponges.”
Leah Vernon, chair of the Education Foundation’s Teacher Grants Committee, said the grant application is a very competitive process. The committee reviewed the many grant applications to determine which ones could be funded and how much money each could receive.
“The teachers bring new innovative things to their classroom,” Vernon said. Many times, she said, teachers have these ideas to implement in their classrooms, but they do not have the funds from the school or in their personal funds to bring those ideas to fruition.
The joy and excitement expressed by the grant recipients only goes to show how passionate our Bryan ISD educators are about their students!
Thank you to the Education Foundation for their continuous generosity and support of Bryan ISD educators and students! Thank you also to Amazon Prime Air for being the presenting sponsor for the Education Foundation's Kick Off Pep Rally at Bonham Elementary.
You can see more photos from our Facebook post here, and check out the news article from KBTX here.
