Credit union to open applications for teacher creative learning grants

EUGENE, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Beginning Aug. 15, Oregon K-12 educators can apply for the 2021 SPARK! Creative Learning Grants from SELCO Community Credit Union, which award up to $1,000 each to fund projects across the 27 Oregon counties SELCO serves.

After a long and challenging year of virtual learning, SELCO aims to help educators transition back into the classroom in the 2021-22 school year by providing critical funding for in-classroom and extracurricular projects that are innovative, educational, and impactful. In 2020, SELCO awarded $42,000 to 47 teachers at 38 accredited Oregon schools.

“Students and parents are more excited than ever for the return to the classroom this fall, and after losing a year of in-person learning, educators are eager to begin new and impactful projects,” said Craig Carpenter, SELCO’s senior vice president of lending and business banking. “SELCO’s mission with the SPARK! program has always been to make sure that a lack of funding never gets in the way of a great idea. We have been awarding these grants for nearly 30 years, and educators from around the state continue to impress us with their passion for teaching and creativity.”

Now in its 28th year, the SPARK! Creative Learning Grants program supports teachers who have creative classroom ideas but not the funding to get those projects off the ground. Grants are awarded to applicants with the most innovative, impactful, and meaningful projects. SELCO’s SPARK! committee reviews applications based on project originality, proposal clarity, number of students affected, skill development, and diversity and impact of projects. The grant application window runs from Aug. 15 to Sept. 30, 2021.

For the pandemic-altered 2020 school year, SPARK! grants helped fund projects of all types, including Innovative Elementary Level STEM Engineering, Farm To Table Cooking Classes, Flipping the Narrative: Marginalized Populations in Ancient History, and more. Culver Middle School even went so far to incorporate virtual reality into its art program.

For more information about SELCO’s SPARK! Creative Learning Grants, to view a student-produced video from a past project, or to apply, visit www.selco.org/spark. For questions, email spark@selco.org or call 541-686-5382.

About SELCO Community Credit Union

Founded over 80 years ago by a group of fiscally minded teachers, Eugene-based SELCO Community Credit Union today serves more than 142,000 members as one of the largest and longstanding Oregon-based credit unions. A not-for-profit, federally insured, member-driven financial cooperative with more than $2 billion in assets, SELCO provides its member-owners with exceptional rates and low fees on a full range of financial products and services, including banking, mortgages, personal and business loans, investments, and insurance. Membership is available to anyone who lives or works in one of the 27 Oregon counties SELCO serves. For more information or to become a member today, stop by one of SELCO’s 14 branches, visit selco.org, or call 800-445-4483.