The Kernersville Chamber of Commerce this week distributed more than two dozen grants totaling $22,000 to all 12 WS/FCS schools in town and the North Carolina Leadership Academy.

Chamber President Chris Comer told Scope News that the grants fund a wide range of “additional learning opportunities” that teachers often can’t cover through regular classroom budgets.

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She stressed that the program only works because of broad community buy-in:

“This is a full community project: From the committee at the Chamber to those that go eat at the restaurants during Eating for Education and visit the shops during Shopping for Education, the business and private donors that give, the readers who read the grants, the teachers, of course, who write the grants, and the committee that chooses the grants.”

Now more than two decades old, the grant program is designed to back projects that enrich student learning. Teachers submit brief applications detailing the project, its purpose, and its budget.

Each year’s cycle aims for broad reach: at least one grant per school, with the highest-scoring arts grants and special education/ESL grants chosen regardless of school.

Funds come primarily from the Chamber’s business-backed initiatives and private donations.

Earlier this year, Scope News spoke with Piney Grove third-grade teacher Catherine Gant, whose latest grant this cycle is her fourth overall. She described the program as “one of the easier grants” she’d received, praising the quick turnaround and real-world impact of the funds on her classroom.

Here are a few of this year’s recipients:

For a closer look at how the grants work and how local teachers put them to use, click here for our full report or here for information from the Chamber.

This article has been updated to correct Gant’s total number of grants.

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