Grantees

Springfield Area Parent Child Center (SAPCC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit providing a wide range of community services to residents of Southern Windsor and Northern Windham Counties. At the heart of our organization is PlayWorks Child Center which aims to provide children with a nurturing environment in which to grow and learn. With this funding, SAPCC will purchase a “Smart Board” for the PlayWorks preschool classroom. A smart board is an interactive display used by educators to whiteboard project lesson materials, play videos, and give presentations. The advantages of smart boards in the classroom are multifaceted and transformative for engaging students in dynamic learning experiences and fostering collaboration.

Fund tumbling mats and a diaper changing area to enhance program offerings and remove an attendance barrier

Purchase infant simulators to provide teens with a more realistic experience of infant care where teens will learn the basic responsibilities and demands of parenting.

TogetherWorks' Open0-Mic program is a healthy choice for a weekly structured youth activity. This grant will allow us to purchase the appropriate equipment for this program.

The Puppets in Education program needs to update the puppet presentation and workshop set up, as per evaluation feedback from teachers, to have the most effective social emotional presentations for VT's children. Our stage is over 15 years old and is held together with duct tape. We have been using donated items for the workshop and it is not as successful as we would like it to be. We are in need of a new stage, rear projector and screen. Our programs have the most impact when children lose themselves in the story and world the puppets create. Having faulty equipment can break the powerful connection with the children and then the important messages the puppets are teaching are lost. New equipment will let us focus on the programming.

Over the past three years we have established an active bicycle program based out of Putney Central School. This program includes housing a fleet of bikes for our students to use during school and and summer programming, a shed to store them, and tools for our students to learn the skills to maintain this fleet. The funds requested in this application would go towards purchasing materials to construct elements of a community bike park on our campus. The materials purchased would include wood (approx. $1500) and hardware (approx. $500). The features designed and build include jumps, banked curves, drop in ramps, rollers, etc. These features would be an exciting addition to the existing infrastructure of bike program, and would be available for youth to use during school hours, as well as outside of school time during the evenings, weekends and throughout school breaks.

We would like to enrich our fruit trees and harvest curriculum by purchasing equipment for annual use by our students. This includes an apple broom, a picking ladder, and most importantly, a cider press. These purchases will become a regular component of our traditional autumn harvest curriculum. We have several apple trees as well as pear trees in our playyard that we care for and harvest annually. Children and teachers watch and notice the development of the fruit from blossom to harvest, and then prepare foods to eat and store. We feel that celebrating our connection to locally grown food is of the utmost importance for the health of our bodies and the health of our communities and is a natural fit in our program.

Green Mountain Mobile Therapy is requesting an equipment grant to fund a ramp installation to our mobile therapy office. This will provide a safer, more accessible entrance to the therapeutic space for children with mobility challenges.