The Hempfield Foundation is pleased to announce our 2023-24 Round 2 Grants. Thanks to the generous support of our partners and donors, we were able to award 14 grants totaling $33,747.25 this round. Grants were awarded at all grade levels and encompass everything from STEAM and ELA to social/emotional support and developing critical thinking skills.
Elementary School Grant Awards
Jessica Williams & Erin Settle, CES—$2,360 to fund seating, fidget instruments and other items to support students with sensory and movement needs in a flexible learning environment.
Adelyn Pawlik, EPES—$1,000 to fund a break room for intermediate students to use as safe space upstairs in the building. The room will have self-regulation tools and resources, as well as sensory and motor products. The room will be open to all grades, if needed, and a small portion of the grant will be used to restock the primary break room.
Jennifer Baer, FES—$276.88 to fund application subscriptions for VocabA-Z and Kahoot Max. These applications are used for vocabulary instruction, reteaching and practice for struggling ESL students.
Samantha Schlegel, FES—$1,995 to fund two years of Reflex Math, a game-based math fact fluency website, for students to become more fluent in their facts. The addition of this resource would be motivating (on a daily basis) and can be used before/after school or during intervention
Kari Miller & Janelle Witter, LIC & MES—$914.92 to fund hands-on activities (Rush Hour, Gravity Maze, Q-Bitz, Qwirkle, etc.) for critical thinking/logic in the classroom. These hands-on materials will provide all students with opportunities to grow their logical thinking/problem-solving skills.
Christina Hoover, LPC—$3,150 to fund a school-wide assembly that includes hands-on STEAM activities related to Charlotte’s Web—the text for LPC’s one book, one school initiative.
Kristi Miller, LPC—$1,033.56 to fund Heggarty Decodable Readers for home fluency practice. The engaging collections of decodable books are designed to match early phonics concepts taught. These can be sent home to reinfornce skills and as a resource for families to fill reading gaps.
Emily Beidler, LPC—$3,115.99 to fund Artist-in-Residence Maria Hershey from Hershey Pottery. Art teacher Mrs. Beidler, who is retiring this year, will transform the art room into a clay studio for six days. Every student will watch Maria throw pottery on the wheel and then make a clay project of their own.
Kimberly Ernst, LPC—$3,045 to fund six Orff Instruments— three Soprano Xylophones and three Alto Xylophones. The students will benefit as they grow as musicians using the instruments. Access to barred instruments will enable learners to compose, perform in an ensemble, create through improvisation, and develop music literacy.
Middle School Grant Awards
Andrea Rutledge, LMS—$1,000 to fund items (flexible seating, carpets, etc.) to create “book nooks“—areas where students can read comfortably in ELA classrooms
Kristen Fickes & Dan Snyderman, LMS and CMS—$6,000 to fund a Vex IQ Robotics Challenge. Vex IQ is a robotics system that snaps together, enabling students to quickly and to easily assemble a variety of robots. Using the VEX IQ Classroom Bundle, VEXcode software (compatible with iPads), and Carnegie Mellon University’s CS-STEM Network’s free curriculum, students will build, code, and manipulate their own technological designs
High School Grant Awards
Lauren Miller, HHS—$698 to fund a TRONXY MOORE 2PRO Clay 3D Printer. The printer will be incorporated into STEAM education.
Sarah DeMaria, HHS—$5,458 to fund a Short Story Dispenser. Students will have access to age-relevant literature with the push of a button, seasonal collections, endless possible student projects to be published and dispensed, portability to make visits to other buildings/classrooms, etc. Anything that can be in written word or art can be celebrated with the story cube dispenser.
Multi-Level Grant Awards
Susan Allen, CES, CMS, LIC, LPC, LMS, and LEC—$3,700 to fund a Sphero BOLT kit and code mats, with a 2 year warranty. The kit consists of programmable robots that can be used to drive or code to targets, for story retelling, STEM challenges and to gather data using the onboard sensors.
Congratulations to all of the award winners.
