There’s a new initiative in the area – to improve student reading and increase student engagement in schools throughout Chelan, Douglas and Okanogan counties- and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has donated $340 thousand to make sure it happens. The foundation reached out to the Community Foundation of North Central Washington and Chelan-Douglas United Way to help develop the grant program to distribute the money into our local schools.

 

Beth Stipe, Executive Director for the Community Foundation of North Central Washington says the initiative is called Ending Poverty through Education and is part of a Building Community Philanthropy Initiative.

 

The funds will be dispersed in 2 components, 1 will come in the form of a reading program- working closely with Intermountain Americorps to develop a reading program in 15 of the region’s elementary schools – which will be available in about a month. The other component is the Classroom Can! Grant – which Stipe says will provide $1000 to 50 K-12 teachers in North Central Washington.

 

Stipe says she is excited to be a part of this initiative- allowing her organization to focus in on issues that affet all of the communities in North Central Washington.

 

Stipe says the Classroom Can! Grant applications are available now on the community foundation website and are due by April 8th.

 

For more information or for one of those applications- you can visit our website- kozi.com and click on the Classroom Can link: http://www.cfncw.org/classroomscan

 

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