Grantees

We are requesting grant funding to purchase six carpets for the newly renovated Starksboro Cooperative Preschool. Our updated space now has a polished concrete floor, which, while durable, is cold and hard for young children. These carpets will provide warmth, comfort, and a soft surface where preschoolers and toddlers can safely play, learn, and gather. We also plan to place a carpet in each of our two new office spaces. Soft carpeting throughout the preschool will help create a welcoming, cozy environment that supports the well-being and development of the children and families we serve, while also contributing to a more comfortable and pleasant workspace for our staff.

Stepping Stones Preschool is a play-based early childhood education program serving children ages six weeks to five years old. This grant will allow us to further encourage our youngest children's curiosity in science, discovery and sensory play using new light tables in both our preschool and infant/toddler classrooms. Our children will be able to explore colors, shapes, light exploration, early math and counting skills, color matching, design, and fine motor skills using colored light table tiles, letters, shapes, rocks and minerals and actual animal and human xrays!

The gear will be used to camp, operate, and sleep during Winter and Summer camp sessions.

Sunrise Family Resource Center has been “Strengthening Families” in our community for over 50 years and is Bennington County’s only Parent Child Center. We recently opened a food Pantry for program participants to access free fresh, frozen, and nonperishable food items, clothing/shoes, toiletries, menstrual products, diapers/wipes, baby formula, household goods, and children’s toys/books. The equipment funded by this grant will allow us to expand our fresh/frozen food offerings, by doubling our refrigeration/freezer space in our Pantry. Since opening our Pantry in May 2021, our Pantry has been accessed over 260 times. Over the 2021 year, we worked with over 2,200 children, who have access to our Pantry.

Sunrise is a non-profit organization, one of 15 parent-child centers in the State of Vermont. We provide many services to families in the Bennington county. The ECE program provides priority care to student-parents in our Learning Together program as well as families that are getting services from Sunrise's other programs, and families that have DCF involvement. We are currently not fully staffed and have low child enrollment that is currently causing the Early Care and Education program to not have enough funds to get a new dishwasher.

To purchase equipment for the VT licensed preschool space to increase scientific knowledge of cildren and to support the program's ability to document children's learning, particularly for ESL students.

Purchase quick-erect tent shelters to be shared by several Girl Scouts Day Camps throught the State.

The Barra School provides free year-round forest and wilderness programming for at-risk and neurodivergent LGBTQIA+ youth and youth of other underserved and marginalized populations. We operate on a cohort model and work with 2-4 cohorts of youth ages 9-18 a year. We are requesting funding for adaptive backpacking equipment which will improve the accessibility and safety of our programming for youth with physical limitations and/or disabilities.