Teachers’ Fund Grants Aid Projects Connecting Kids to Community

The San Diego Teachers’ Fund supports K-12 public school teachers in San Diego County by improving teaching effectiveness and increasing student engagement and achievement through mini-grants for classroom and real-world projects.

“Broadening student learning to include community engagement may begin a lifelong passion for civic participation,” San Diego Foundation CEO Kathlyn Mead shared.

For the current school year, the San Diego Teachers’ Fund awarded grants to 65 projects at 44 different schools across the county. The grants range from the arts to the sciences and schools awarded include a wide range of public and charter schools, including schools at juvenile detention facilities. Since 1995, the San Diego Teachers’ Fund has impacted more than 32,000 students and distributed more than $1 million to more than 1,000 deserving teachers.

At Flying Hills Elementary School in El Cajon, a $1,000 grant awarded to third grade teacher Shauna Stueve is bringing a whole new level of eco-awareness to students and their families. The environmentallyconscious Ocean Beach resident and Surfrider Foundation volunteer wanted to give her inland students a look at how their actions in East County affect the coastline, as well as how they are never too young to make a positive impact on their community.

Stueve’s third graders will have the opportunity to go on a specially design beach clean-up day, plant a school garden of their own and decorate a wall with mounted tiles featuring affirmative messages. With a grant awarded during the previous 2013-2014 school year, she was able to include a similar project in her curriculum and the results have been lasting: Stueve’s students from the prior year still oversee care of the garden; families continue to share how they’ve incorporated recycling into their lives at home; and parents at this year’s back to school night wanted to know right away if their students would be participating in similar projects as well.

The San Diego Teachers’ Fund 2014-2015 program was funded by the FEDCO Charitable Foundation, a supporting organization of the California Community Foundation, and individual donations by generous donors with a passion for education to the San Diego Teachers’ Fund at The San Diego Foundation.

About The San Diego Foundation
Founded in 1975, The San Diego Foundation’s purpose is to promote and increase effective and responsible charitable giving. The Foundation manages more than $666 million in assets, more than half of which reside in permanent endowment funds that extend the impact of today’s gifts to future generations. Since its inception, The Foundation has granted more than $897 million to the San Diego region’s nonprofit community. For additional information, please visit The San Diego Foundation at sdfoundation.org.

Contact
Vince Heald, Beck Ellman Heald, 858-453-9600, vheald@behmedia.com
Theresa Nakata, The San Diego Foundation, 619-890-1378, theresan@sdfoundation.org