Educators can now apply for SELCO Community Credit Union’s SPARK! Creative Learning Grants

SPRINGFIELD, Ore. (KTVZ) -- The window for Oregon K-12 educators to apply for 2022 SPARK! Creative Learning Grants from SELCO Community Credit Union is now open.

The grants award as much as $1,000 each to fund projects across the 27 Oregon counties SELCO serves. SELCO uses the grants to prove critical funding for in-classroom and extracurricular projects that are innovative, educational, and impactful.

In 2021, SELCO awarded more than $54,000 — the largest in the nearly three decades of the SPARK! program — to 64 teachers at 55 Oregon schools.

“Educators and students have faced many changes over the last few years, but one thing that remains the same is the need for funds to get creative and innovative ideas off the ground,” said Craig Carpenter, SELCO’s senior vice president of lending and business banking. “From the SPARK! program’s beginnings, SELCO’s mission has been to ensure that funding isn’t an insurmountable obstacle preventing great ideas from taking root. For nearly three decades, we’ve watched great ideas ignite a passion for learning in students — a passion that can last a lifetime.”

Now in its 29th year, the SPARK! Creative Learning Grants program supports educators with creative classroom ideas in need of funding. 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 application window runs from Aug. 15 to Sept. 30.

For the 2021-22 school year, SPARK! grants helped fund projects of all types, including a Monarch butterfly school garden, a drone-powered geo-spatial mapping project, and a program to identify human impacts on ecosystems by sampling macroinvertebrates to determine water quality.

For more information about SELCO’s SPARK! Creative Learning Grants, or to view past recipients or a video highlighting a recent 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 86 years ago by a group of fiscally minded teachers, Springfield-based SELCO Community Credit Union today serves more than 148,000 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 $2.6 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 or eight Washington counties SELCO serves. For more information or to become a member today, stop by one of SELCO’s 15 branches, visit selco.org, or call 800-445-4483.