The site is the 2nd-grade Carpenter Hill Elementary School class of teacher Brittney Simmons and those round things Simmons’ students are holding are balance disks purchased through the courtesy of a grant from the local Hope & Love 4 Kids organization. Broken out of their packaging, the disks were put to immediate testing by the Colt 2nd-graders. Enjoying the moment with the students are (back, left to right) Carpenter Hill Principal Jason Certain, Hope & Love 4 Kids representative Stephanie Pool, and grant award-winner Simmons. (Photo by Jim Cullen)
by JIM CULLEN
While the attention of most Hays CISD students was on the usual things – football, volleyball, band, Homecoming and such – last week, a number of students and their teachers had the good fortune of being in on grants being awarded to their campuses. Five grants went to five schools from three different sources and were celebrated with the obligatory over-sized check, words of congratulations, handshakes and photos.
Most years, the district’s Education Foundation does it twice, always with a much greater dollar total, but these days everyone knows how scarce extra dollars are, enhancing both the need and appreciation for such awards. Last week’s cumulative dollar total was somewhere in excess of $8,000 and, as always, the welcomed funds are intended to underwrite great ideas needing unanticipated, unbudgeted dollars.
Topping the cumulative dollar total of grants were the three $1,500 awards to HCISD elementary schools by “Rainwater Revival,” a self-described “brainstorm of the Hays County Water Conservation Working Group that supports the mission to spread the good word on rainwater harvesting and water conservation, the importance of which grows with our ever increasing population.”
Rainwater Revival offered the $1,500 grants (HCISD schools won all three) to the county’s elementary schools for projects that will be used to enhance water conservation education and, ideally, promote water harvesting on campus. The awarding group’s website indicated the funds were raised through last year’s auctioning of rain barrels painted by professional artists at the 2010 Rainwater Revival.
Schools receiving the grants included Buda Elementary, Blanco Vista Elementary and Tobias Elementary. Each campus enjoyed a celebratory visit last week from Rainwater Revival representative Karen Ford and Hays County spokeswoman Laureen Chernow. Ford explained the reason for the grants to students at each campus and briefly described the projects their teachers had submitted to the competition.
At Buda Elementary, teacher Kim Crow will coordinate a campus Rainwater Revival group as an after-school club this fall, researching water conservation and preparing rainwater harvesting barrels. At Blanco Vista Elementary, the grant went to teachers Rosalba Concha-Cortez and Katherine Espinoza for their project titled “Que Llueva, Que Llueva” (Rain, Rain, Come and Stay). Their project will engage the entire campus, with specific responsibilities for each grade level, all focused on rainwater conservation. The project will culminate with a school-wide display of their efforts at their own Rainwater Festival.
At Tobias Elementary, art teacher Roisel Ramirez was awarded a grant to set up four “Triple Units” of water collection, each holding up to 165 gallons of water that will support the gardening needs of a 12x10-foot garden.
Principals at each of the Rainwater Revival grant campuses were equally effusive about their just-funded projects. Buda Elementary Principal Charla Salmeron echoed her counterparts’ reactions, saying she is looking forward to the opportunities that have opened up with the grants, and citing her grant coordinator as “a great role model for ecological awareness.”
At Chapa Middle School, librarian Carol Deviney received the district’s largest award for the week, a Dollar General Literacy Grant for $3,000. Deviney’s grant proposal was to further fund the Chapa library’s non-fiction collection, targeting the school’s special needs population with books geared to their reading levels. The grant recipient says she is thrilled about the grant, reaffirms her goal of getting more students reading non-fiction, saying, “I can’t say thank you enough to the people at Dollar General.” Chapa principal Lisa Walls expresses her excitement about the grant and says, “We are so glad Mrs. Deviney went the extra mile to apply for the grant.”
The grant providing perhaps the most immediate energy came courtesy of the Hope & Love 4 Kids organization, which provided funding for a classroom set of balance disks. Carpenter Hill 2nd-grade teacher Brittney Simmons submitted the winning grant proposal for the disks, on which students sit while at their desks. Colt Principal Jason Certain explains the disks “allow students to ‘wiggle’ at their core while seated in a chair,” the positive effects being the strengthening of the student’s core and relaxation of the upper body.”
