CHEF awards teaching excellence grants
The Cape Henlopen Educational Foundation recently announced 12 grants totaling $9,800 to help Cape Henlopen School District teachers provide new educational resources and experiences for their students.
The grants will support a variety of K-12 programs including support for the Beacon Theatre Arts production of “Annie,” sponsorship of the Cape district’s fifth-grade science fair, high-interest books for reluctant readers, and an environmental science project to design and construct an outdoor performance space at Cape Henlopen High School.
The Beacon Middle School band will receive funds to develop and perform a concert repertoire at the University of Delaware, which will be evaluated by panels of judges, both before and after the concert.
Another grant will support a photography project by fifth-grade students at Rehoboth Elementary, based on their classroom studies about Mexican history, culture and art. Their photographs will be displayed at a local community business.
Third-grade science students from Love Creek Elementary visited a local water restoration facility to observe how water is filtered and cleaned. Then they designed their own water filters and compared their solutions to cleaning up water pollution. The project was inspired by a story about a little girl from India who was determined to clean up water in the Ganges River to save her pet turtle.
The grants are a central focus of CHEF’s efforts to provide financial support for classroom and extracurricular projects and programs that the school district could not otherwise afford. Since 2006, CHEF has funded over 225 teaching excellence grant requests – as well as anti-bullying programs, performing arts scholarships and STEM projects – totaling over $300,000 in educational aid to the eight Cape district schools.
Grant requests are reviewed by Cape administrators and then evaluated by a panel of educators chaired by CHSD Reading Specialist Cathy Miller. Recommendations are then submitted to the CHEF board of directors for approval.
“The support of our generous local sponsors – individuals, businesses, and foundations – allows us to fund educational opportunities that inspire learning and promote career development,” said CHEF President Jeff Gordon. “We can all remember from our own education the positive impact of field trips, cultural events and outside-the-textbook discoveries.”
Now in its 11th year, CHEF is a 501c3 nonprofit organization and the only fully functioning public school educational foundation in Delaware. For more information, go to www.chef-cape.org.
