AHEF Awards $62,070 in Grants for 2020-21 School Year
ANOKA, MINN. – The Anoka-Hennepin Educational Foundation (AHEF) recently awarded the first round of grant funds for school projects and students totaling $62,070 in annual grants for the 2020-21 school year. These funds will be complemented with a second round of grants in the Fall (called mini-grants because they are capped at $500).
“Given our current distance learning, grant requests were down from usual levels,” said Tess DeGeest, executive director of the Anoka-Hennepin Educational Foundation (AHEF), “I think teachers and staff are so focused on ending the current year in a strong position some weren’t ready to think about next year quite yet.” As a result, AHEF is anticipating a larger number of requests in the Fall and is planning to award $10,000 during that grant cycle.
Maker spaces continue to be popular requests among elementary schools while graphic novels and other curricular materials that better reflect the diversity of Anoka-Hennepin were requested for classrooms serving students preschool through high school.
A complete list of the grants awarded is here. Other grants funded include robots for elementary students, poetry books and moon maps for middle school classrooms, and hands on, small group science experiences for DCD students, to name a few.
In addition to these annual grants, AHEF will continue to support after school activities for middle and high school students through the Middle School Engagement Fund and Chance Fund as well as other perennial grants like dictionaries for all third graders, and support for the district’s K-12 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Fair.
“Our donors make these grants possible,” said DeGeest, “Thank you to everyone, teachers, administrators, staff, parents and community partners, for enriching our students’ education.”
The next round of AHEF grants will open in late August and close October 1, 2020. Grants awarded during the Fall cycle have a funding cap of $500 per grant. Fall grant funds will be awarded in mid-October for implementation in the 2020-2021 school year. For more information email Theresa.degeest@ahschools.us.
