Community groups, teachers receive street festival grants
These representatives from 22 non-profit or school groups accepted grants from the Madison Street Festival committee at a Madison City Council meeting. CONTRIBUTED
MADISON – The Madison Street Festival steering committee has presented grants to 22 community groups.
Each year, the committee pays all expenses for the event and then returns any remaining funds to non-profit or school groups in Madison.
In 2016, 48 applicants requested money from the MSF Grants Committee, chairperson Keegan Mumaw said. Rosalie Holcombe and Alicia Roberts also work on the grants committee.
Twenty-two groups received $7,002.99 from MSF. In addition, the MSF committee will present a $1,000 scholarship to a senior at Bob Jones and James Clemens high schools.
Exceptional People in Community received $800 for improving life skills for adults with disabilities. Leaders will buy educational materials to directly help clients.
Ready Yourself for the Future will use its $1,000 for leadership training for the boys. Madison Senior Center will improve its Craft Room supplies and activities with $250.
At Horizon Elementary School, the “Give Me Something to Read” program will use $300 to buy nonfiction books that all 680 students can check out. Horizon’s “Scholastic News” received $300 for this weekly nonfiction print and digital resource for second-graders.
Grant money at $250 will provide Columbia Elementary School with one Stemscopes Science hands-on kit and two consumable kits. Columbia’s STEM initiative will apply $250 to reach Alabama’s new standards for science study.
With its MSF grant for $297.99, Rainbow Elementary School will partially fund Digital Explosion, a summer program for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics activities for students in grades K-6.
Three teachers at Mill Creek Elementary School were awarded grants:
* Imagination Playground — $250 for preschool program serving both children with and without special needs.
* Google Expedition items — $400 for android phones and Google cardboard for virtual field trips.
* Literature for life — $200 for book sets to illustrate reading concepts.
Heritage Elementary School received $200 for “Reading Across the World” books for learning Spanish and $230 for “Leader in Me” study of 21st-century leadership. With $300, Madison Elementary School will buy Stemscopes science kit with math manipulatives.
West Madison Elementary School nabbed $375 for “Engineering Excellence” kit focusing on bridge building. The Computer Science Lab at Liberty Middle School will order laptop batteries with its $300 grant.
James Clemens High School was awarded three grants:
* College and Career Center — $200.
* Special Olympics warm-ups — $200.
* “Not Your Average Molecule” books — $300 for book set in all levels of chemistry.
Bob Jones High School received three grants from MSF:
* Science Olympiad — $200 for building competition projects.
* Test prep — $250 for study materials for ACT exams.
* “Escape with Math” — $150 for learning games that teach problem solving.
