As the school year winds down and summer quickly approaches, we decided to look back over the year to see what we accomplished with our Teacher Resource Grant Programs.

Each fall, we launch multiple grant programs that provide small, immediate response grants to public school teachers in the Bay Area for a variety of classroom needs. For the 2015-2016 school year, we offered grants for field trips, visiting artists, after school clubs, and special education support, as well as art, math, and science resources for the classroom. Each of these grant programs is made possible by generous funding from family foundations.

When looking at the numbers, we see that these programs were particularly impactful during the 2015-2016 school year:

• 7 unique grant programs were available

• 5 Bay Area Counties were eligible

• 707 grants were awarded

• $500-$2,500 was the range of the grant amount

• $485,759 was given out in total

• 14,000+ students benefited

These figures show the wide reach that these programs have within the Bay Area’s public education system, but this impact really comes to life through the feedback we receive from teachers each year. Below we have included a selection of testimonials from teachers for each of our seven teacher grant programs for the 2015-2016 school year:

Excursion Grant recipient – “These field trips would be rich learning experiences for any group of six year olds, but it is especially valuable for our student community. The background knowledge and schema that students need to be successful in traditional school settings is woefully lacking in children growing up in poverty and violence stricken neighborhoods. These simple field trips will add to their repertoire of experiences to draw from for years to come, as well as give them some beautiful memories to reflect on when they are in need of comfort. Thank you again for your outstanding generosity, and for giving the children of East Oakland such rich experiences.”

Arts Resource Grant recipient – “With your grant, you have helped me discover that art can be a wonderful way to nurture a child’s creative ability and language.”

Visiting Artist in the Classroom Grant recipient – “PVF has played an essential role in enriching my students’ second grade year through creative expression, scientific exploration, and authentic engagement.”

Science Resource Grant recipient – “The other educators and myself felt so fortunate and excited to have been able to provide our students with this experience. The ‘hands-on’ learning was evident all day and we are confident that students will always remember the science and life skills that they learned that day. After immersing in science, and being chemist themselves, my students can feel more confident knowing that they too can continue to learn and succeed in the area of science. Thank you so much for supporting public school education. As a Title-I school we would not have been able to do this without your help.”

Mathematics Resource Grant recipient – “I am grateful for the ease and speed with which these grants are distributed. If only everything in education was as smooth and efficient!”

Special Education Resource Grant recipient – “With this grant we were able to provide students with Leap Frog readers to read independently. In the past my students were not able to read a book without the support of an adult and were not interested in it. Reading is now their favorite activity of the day. Your support has repeatedly played a key role in promoting independence that we had difficulty accomplishing without these materials.”

After School Grant recipient – “Thank you for supporting our vision and for helping us to grow the leaders who will transform our schools, our neighborhoods, and our world.”

With these simple but significant grants, we look forward to continuing to help dedicated but under-resourced educators in the Bay Area create future generations of leaders.