SPRINGFIELD, Ore. — SELCO Community Credit Union has awarded more than $54,000 to 60 educators at 55 schools across Oregon through its annual SPARK! Creative Learning Grants program.
The program, which has long supported teachers who have creative classroom ideas but lack the funds to get those projects off the ground, provides grants of as much as $1,000 to K-12 educators across the 27 Oregon counties that SELCO serves.
“This program was started nearly 30 years ago, and the idea hasn’t changed: Make a difference for educators committed to sparking a thirst for learning in their students,” said Craig Carpenter, SELCO’s senior vice president of lending and business banking. “As a credit union founded by educators nearly 90 years ago, SELCO remains dedicated to supporting the many innovative educators throughout Oregon who want to find new and meaningful ways to reach students.”
Among the many notable projects that earned a 2022 SPARK! Grant is an “Electrathon” race team that will build single-passenger electric vehicles, a multicultural, multilingual school library, and a program that explores the wonders of chemistry through art.
The committee’s goal is to fund innovative projects that will have the largest possible impact on students and the greatest opportunity to leave a lasting impression.
For example, the credit union said, Judy Tacchini, a teacher at Cascade Middle School in Eugene, used a SPARK! Grant in 2021 to help fund her “Preserving the Narrative” program — which tasked students with writing, designing, curating, and publishing a paperback anthology of stories reflecting the lived, or imagined, experiences of students, for students.