SYEMC awards $7,020 in grants to local teachers

Excitement filled the classrooms of 10 teachers from the Surry-Yadkin Electric Membership Corporation service area in late October as surprise visits were made to the winners of this year’s Bright Ideas Education Grants.

Surry-Yadkin EMC lineworkers were staged in their bucket trucks, holding signs displaying the grant amounts that the winning teachers had been awarded for their projects. Students, faculty and staff were all on board with the surprise visits to celebrate in the delight of their teachers having been chosen to fulfill their desired ventures.

A judge panel of retired educators from the Surry-Yadkin EMC service area blind-judged the applications in late September. The grants provide funding for innovative classroom projects, with $7,020 being awarded overall.

This year’s local Bright Ideas Education Grant winners are:

• Alicia Fallaw, a first-grade teacher at Flat Rock Elementary School in Mount Airy, will use her $642.30 grant for “Learning Can ‘Bee’ So Much Fun with Bee-Bot Mats.” The bee-bot learning cards and mats can be used in small groups daily to increase engagement and overall mastery of first-grade content. This project will provide bee-bot mats and learning cards that can be used for years to come not only in Fallaw’s classroom, but in classrooms across the grade level, as well.
• Kellie Hunter, also a first-grade teacher at Flat Rock Elementary School in Mount Airy, will use her $480 grant for “Catch the Buzz: Save our Bee-bots!,” which will include the purchase of six replacement batteries that will enable the Bee-bots she currently has in her classroom to continue to function properly.
• Kandice Norman, STEAM teacher at Bruce H. Tharrington Primary School, will use her $620.93 grant for “It’s the Little Things” to obtain microscope sets to spark inquiry into the world around her students and to enhance hands-on learning in her classroom.
• Crystal Fain, a science teacher at Mount Airy High School in Mount Airy, will use her $989.07 grant for “Take A Breath,” which will allow her to purchase four Vernier Go Direct Wireless Carbon Dioxide gas sensors. These sensors will enable students to improve their understanding of photosynthesis and cellular respiration in terms of how energy is stored, released, and transferred within and between biochemical processes and energy in the cell.
• Beth Lowry, a science and English teacher at Mount Airy Middle School in Mount Airy, will use her $998.53 grant for “Amplifying Curiosity with Creative Science Experiences,” which will give her an opportunity to purchase multiple items for hands-on learning through scientific experiments. Microscopes, chemistry sets, magnets, human body models and more will be purchased to support her goals in bringing excitement to her STEM-focused classroom.
• Jenna Mahr, music teacher at Salem Christian Academy in Dobson, will use her $165.93 grant for “Ukuleles for Middle School,” which will assist in purchasing ukuleles for her music instruction.
• Susan Marshall, music teacher at Mountain Park Elementary School in State Road, won a grant for $999.98 for “The Ukulele Project,” which will allow her to purchase ukuleles for her classroom, as well as teach students how to play the instrument.
• Timothy Younts, a teacher at Lewisville Elementary School in Lewisville, was awarded a grant for $900.38 for his project, “Ready, Set, Learn with Sphero Indi,” which will allow him to purchase five Sphero Indi Educational Robot Student Kits. These kits allow for a versatile educational robotic platform that will be used in kindergarten to second grade classrooms at Lewisville Elementary School.
• Melissa Simpson, art teacher at Dobson Elementary School, was awarded $270.88 toward her project, “Build, Rebuild, Invent,” allowing her to purchase educational blocks for her classroom. Students will begin a project two dimensionally and then see how or if it would work in a three-dimensional aspect. They could use the blocks as actual stamps and use in printmaking projects, as well.
• Annette Reece, a computer teacher at Franklin Elementary School in Mount Airy, was awarded a $952 grant to fund “Tale Bots,” which will allow her students to learn how to code a computer.

The 10 projects will enhance the opportunity for growth in an innovative and hands-on approach in each of the selected schools in Surry and Forsyth counties.

Surry-Yadkin EMC is one of 26 electric cooperatives in North Carolina offering Bright Ideas Education Grants to teachers. Since 1994, North Carolina’s electric cooperatives have awarded more than $14 million in Bright Ideas funding for over 13,500 projects supporting teachers and benefitting more than 2.5 million students.

The Bright Ideas grant program is part of Surry-Yadkin EMC’s ongoing commitment to building a brighter future through support of education.

Bright Ideas grant applications are accepted by SYEMC each year from April through mid-September and winning proposals are selected in a competitive evaluation process by a panel of judges. The application process will reopen for interested teachers in April 2024.

To learn more Surry-Yadkin EMC’s programs that impact local students and communities, visit syemc.com/youth-programs. For more information about Bright Ideas grants, visit www.ncbrightideas.com.