Community First Cares Foundation and INK! Celebrate Success of $25,000 Grant Program

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. - May 24, 2023 - PRLog -- The St. Johns County Education Foundation which operates as Investing in Kids (INK!), along with the Community First Cares Foundation, the charitable giving arm of Community First Credit Union, announces the success of its Champions for Children grants that funded innovative classroom projects in St. Johns County schools during the 2022-2023 school year. Community First Cares gave $25,000 to Champions for Children for the school year, all of which was distributed to local teachers. INK! and Community First Cares teams celebrated the program this week with visits to classrooms to see the impacts of the grants with students and teachers.

INK! and Community First funded classroom STEAM projects at nine schools across St. Johns County including Crookshank Elementary School, Osceola Elementary School, Otis Mason Elementary School, South Woods Elementary School, The Evelyn Hamblen Center, The Webster School, R.J. Murray Middle School, Sebastian Middle School, and St. Augustine High School. Champions for Children grants of $1,000 or $1,500 supported students and teachers in the development of key competencies of STEAM learning with the integration and application of content knowledge, skills, and academics. The projects typically would not qualify for traditional public or district funding.

Amy Brim, a gifted program teacher at South Woods Elementary School in Elkton received grant funding for her project. Brim's students in kindergarten through fifth grades will benefit from STEAM and social skills development through the innovative project she named World Changers.

Brim explained that bright students may thrive on academics yet may struggle with real life skills. With materials funded by the grant, students have access to scholastically designed tools to help them persevere and demonstrate patience and persistence during difficult tasks that are designed to be challenging, engaging, and rigorous.

Funding was also awarded to Chasity Pitre, a fourth-grade teacher at Osceola Elementary School in St. Augustine for her project Wildcat Pride: STEAM Edition (Providing Rich Intervention Deepening Education). Project materials for the Wildcat Pride project include a 3D printer, hands-on learning games, engineering and building sets, and educational tools to provide students with learning experiences that foster collaboration, creativity, problem solving and communication. The skills build resiliency and a growth mindset where failures and mistakes are encouraged.