After-school program gets Verizon grant to build robotics class
Budding engineers will get a leg up on their education with an $8,000 grant recently awarded to a Bigfork afterschool program.
The grant, awarded to the Bigfork ACES after-school program from Verizon, will be used to develop and run a science and technology program using something very familiar to children: Legos. The program teaches robotics and engineering. ACES serves about 220 children in its after-school program in Bigfork.
In addition to the Verizon grant, a local donor recently committed to giving $10,000 a year for the next four years, and an extra $5,000 in matching funds for families who need scholarship money to pay for ACES. Children whose families meet income requirements can participate in ACES for free. Families that do not meet the income requirements pay about $70 a month for the program and its services. About 48 percent of the children in Bigfork schools qualify for free and reduced lunches, ACES director Cathy Hay said. About 20 percent of the families in ACES have to pay a fee while the rest get the program free since they qualify for free and reduced lunches.
The money will help offer ACES services to most any family now.
“I feel one of our greatest needs is not being able to offer the program to everybody in Bigfork,” Hay said. “The scholarship money will help bring kids in who need a meal after school and whose parents can’t pay the fee. Some kids as young as six are going home after school alone with no meals.” The funding from the WIndmill Foundation, Hay said, “will keep our program solid.”
The matching $5,000 must be matched with community funding.
Hay said she wrote a grant for $5,000 for the Verizon program, and after Verizon officials reviewed it, they said she should apply for $8,000. “This is a very hands on program, and it’s not like the old Legos,” she said.
It will be another month before they get the program up and running. ACES workers will train in Bozeman on how to use the Legos robotics program.
The ACES program has also received an $1,800 grant that will be used to upgrade the kitchen facilities and provide meals, instead of snacks, to participating children. The program is run out of the Bigfork Playhouse Children’s Theater basement on Grand Avenue, as well as at the Methodist Church. Children participate in arts, reading, science and sports.
With the new grants, Hay and her staff can focus on providing a valuable service to the community, instead of fundraising.
“I am really excited with our program,” he said. “We’re having a lot of fun and things are going well.”
The majority of the children in the ACES program are in kindergarten through eighth grade. In addition to ACES’ regular programs, Bigfork High School students volunteer their time at ACES, teaching theater, arts and cheerleading. Joey Haug, a music teacher at Swan River Elementary, teaches a Bucket Band with children drumming on five gallon buckets.
Hay said the Bigfork community has shown an overwhelming response to the ACES program. “It’s nice to not have to fight for funding at the moment,” Hay said. “The support just keeps rolling in.”