Until last year I had never applied for a grant. I was always too intimidated, imagining that grant writing was a long, tedious, and "official" process. I mean, aren't there classes and seminars available to help you write grants?
Despite my fears, I decided to apply for a few grants at the end of last school year. The 1st grant was offered by my school cluster. I took a look at the application form, answered the questions, listed my requests, and submitted it. About a month or 2 later . . . grant approved! I receive just over $300 for classroom materials for my grade level!
The grant approval gave me confidence to apply for the next grants available from my schools PTA. There was no harm trying, right? So I applied for another grant for technology materials for my grade level (Interactive Whiteboard software from Lakeshore Learning) and a separate grant for my classroom to purchase books from Scholastic to expand my classroom library. Due to the high volume of applications for these grants, I only got a portion of the funding I asked for, but that was still just over $200 for my grade level and about $150 for my classroom library!
I wasn't able to access the funds until this Fall, but guess what came in the mail last week?!!? Take a look at all the materials I was able to acquire for my grade level through these grants! (I have yet to receive my classroom library books.)
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| Games, Centers, Interactive Whiteboard Software, and Teacher Resource books purchased with grant money! |
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| Teacher Resource Books |
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| Games ready-to-go! Perfect for Centers! |
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| More games ready-to-go . . . perfect for Centers! |
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| Interactive Whiteboard Software! Some even have a printable assessment on the disk to go with the program! |
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Don't be afraid to apply for those grants. It's well worth the time. Besides . . . what's the worst that could happen? They say no? =)
