School group gets $1 million

Orange County students might be using homemade solar ovens to make s’mores now that a local nonprofit has received a million-dollar grant.

Communities in Schools of Orange County, a nonprofit organization that works to keep kids in school, received a $1.3 million grant to help fund new after-school programs for county middle school students. The executive director of the organization, Sheila Sholes-Ross, said this is the second million-dollar grant the organization received.

While the first grant focused on programs for at-risk students, the new grant’s program, Mind Body Schools, will be open to all students.

“The new grant is a STEM focus grant — science, technology, engineering and math,” Sholes-Ross said. The program will be in seven schools across the county as well as Partnership Academy in Hillsborough.

Schools will introduce a six-to-eight week STEM component to their after-school activities this year. There will also be modules in the creative arts and modules design to teach students about community interconnectedness.

With the STEM focus, Sholes-Ross said the organization is starting two 32-week pilot programs at Culbreth Middle School in Chapel Hill and C.W. Stanford Middle School in Hillsborough.

She said she ultimately hopes to implement the program in all Orange County middle schools.

“We believe that all kids have the right, and need the opportunity, to be successful students,” Sholes-Ross said. “They learn by doing, and it has to be fun.”

Veronica Penn-Bartoo, the program director for Mind Body Schools, said activities like building solar ovens will help engage students.

“One student got very excited, and she actually took some extra supplies home to show her little brother and she said she was going to make a solar oven at home,” she said.

Sholes-Ross said she was thrilled to have the new grant and to be able to fund new programs for students, but there is still a need to raise money to cover administrative costs not covered by the grant.

“People think when you have a million-dollar grant, everything is paid for,” she said.

The organization will hold a fundraiser in October to offset some costs not covered by the grant. Sholes-Ross said she also hopes to use the proceeds to fund a trip to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Orlando, Fla., for 50 students.

Kristin Walker, the assistant principal at Phillips Middle School, said having the opportunity to possibly go to NASA would draw kids to the Mind Body Schools Program.

“In past years, our (Communities In Schools) programs have been really successful and we already have a lot of students eager to sign up,” Walker said.

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