The Helena Education Foundation awarded 24 grants for a total of more than $28,146.12 in the first quarter of this school year. These grants funded educator-proposals at 14 schools and enriched the educations of students from Kindergarten to 12th grade. Thank you to our generous community partners who make the grants possible:
Great Ideas and Spark Grants empower educators to go beyond what’s expected to create novel and foundational experiences for Helena students. All grants are named for major donors to the Helena Education Foundation; please contact HEF if you are interested in sponsoring a Great Ideas or Spark Grant.
Capital Sports, Jeff and Libby Goldes, Premier Best Western Great Northern Hotel, Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation, Beth and Mike Cummings, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana, Norma Tirrell, Howard Johnson
Mike and Ginger Agee, Deb Rainey and James Maher, Cochenour Law, Carol Fergerson, In Memory of Neva Porte, Betts Family Foundation, In Memory of Jan Peccia, Stockman Bank, Jason Loble, DA Davidson, Opportunity Bank, Andrew Pida and Sri Vellanki, Ed Clinch, Duane and Sue Wright, Mark Meloy, Helena Orthodontics
Tarun Kimball & Mike Burk, Capital High School
Many children tend to stay indoors during the winter, limiting their physical activity. Providing snow tubes for students, including those with physical disabilities, developmental delays, sensory processing disorders, autism spectrum disorders, and other cognitive or emotional challenges, will get kids excited about being active in the colder months. Snow tubing is not only enjoyable, but it’s also a low-barrier form of physical exercise that encourages coordination, balance, and cardiovascular activity. It fosters a love of outdoor activities and can serve as a gateway to other lifetime winter sports, promoting lifelong physical health and well-being.
Capital Sports
Jennifer Skogley, Central Elementary School
Movement props and small, hand held percussion instruments will allow music students in Functional Life Skills and Trailhead classes–students with special mobility and academic needs–to find success in meeting the foundational skills of music. Bongo drums, finger cymbals, castanets, and woodblocks will help students with coordination and mobility issues learn to keep a steady beat as well as to name a variety of instruments. Finger puppets, scarves, soft pom pom balls, stretchy bands and a parachute will encourage expression through artful and creative movement with music and stories.
Jeff and Libby Goldes
Tyler Anfinson, Capital High School
Students will infuse creativity into their learning through hands-on cooking experiences. Thirty copies of the acclaimed book Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat will provide a foundational text that demystifies the culinary process and empowers students to explore cooking creatively. Funds will also cover the costs of preparing one recipe from each of the book’s four sections, allowing students to engage in experiential learning that extends beyond traditional textbook limitations. This approach not only enhances culinary skills but also fosters creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving abilities.
Premier Best Western Premier Helena Great Northern Hotel
Tyson Reiter & Carson Yahvah, Helena Middle School
Learning a new instrument is not easy! The Music Masters Series will bring engaging, enthusiastic local master music teachers to work with first-year band and orchestra students in the 6th grade classroom for individualized instruction and connection in a masterclass setting. The professional masterclass teachers will offer individualized groups of instruments (flute, clarinet/saxophone, brass, percussion, high strings, and low strings) weekly, small-group lessons with specialists on their instruments while the band or orchestra teacher continues to work on larger learning objectives with the remainder of the sixth-grade group.
Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation
Sarah Dramstad, Gail McMahon & Emily Fadely, Four Georgians Elementary School
Four Georgians will gain universally inclusive music instruments and PE materials that improve Functional Life Skills students’ access and involvement in music and PE class plus appropriate playground equipment so these students have fun, safe, accessible play options at recess. Bass bars and balance stepping stones will expand and reinforce academic, social, and motor skills that students work on in their FLS classroom, as well as in music and physical education class. A free-standing, portable basketball hoop will provide a fun throwing activity, and a musical sculpture will offer a tactile and auditory experience for students, many of whom love sounds and music.
Beth and Mike Cummings
Taylor Hassler & Taylor Hayes, Bryant Elementary School
Students miss an alarming amount of school due to limited or no access to essential self-care items. Living Skills and Literature combines reading with fundamental hygiene instruction to students using hands-on tutorials. Lessons will teach students how to take care of themselves and gain confidence while enjoying literature at the same time. This grant funding will allow for the best type of instruction, where functional meets fun! The cross-curricular lessons focusing on self-care and hygiene will empower students so they feel good about themselves and come to school confident and ready to learn.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana
Olivia Blood & Deborah McNay, Warren Elementary School
Students today are asked to grow their emotional intelligence at a rapid rate. Growth of emotional intelligence involves the development of self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. This project’s purpose is to create a sensory room that will provide students with the necessary tools and a safe physical space to practice emotional regulation, learn coping skills, reflect on experiences, seek support, and return to learning. Thanks to this grant, students at Warren Elementary will have “A Place to BE.”
Norma Tirrell
Amy Michaud, Collette Ozburn, & Emily Pollard, Bryant Elementary School
Many students need sensory supports to help regulate and navigate daily routines. This grant will equip calming spaces filled with various sensory items throughout the school. Calming spaces give students the opportunity to identify self-regulation tools so they can more readily access their learning. When students can focus and participate, their academic performance improves, and their anxiety and stress levels decrease. Implementation of sensory strategies and tools school-wide can create a more calming and safe learning environment for all students. Our goal is to offer students regulation opportunities and meaningful connections throughout their school day.
Howard Johnson
Diloné Mouledous, Kessler Elementary School
Artists from the Holter Art Museum will visit Kessler Elementary School and teach art lessons to students in grades 3-5. The grant will cover the costs of all art supplies needed to teach lessons, often including literacy and mathematical connections, in these upper elementary classrooms. Working with the Holter Museum of Art will give students a connection to our community while providing engaging lessons based on various art forms.
Mike and Ginger Agee
Kaitlin Albus, Smith Elementary School
Since each young musician learns in a different way, Smith will boost its music program with a variety of instruments, books, and manipulatives that offer opportunities for all kids to be successful. Picture books and story books can be highly impactful for visual learners, with the added bonus of reinforcing letters and letter sounds, rhymes etc. Experiential learners will love exploring music by playing, improvising, and composing using a broader spectrum of instruments. Performers will adore the addition of finger and hand puppets which also help reticent students to gain confidence.
Deb Rainey and James Maher
Sarah Dramstad, Jefferson Elementary School
New tambourines, woodblocks, cabasas, a table-top temple block set, and a variety of finger and hand puppets will provide much needed improvements to the musical equipment inventory. Cabasas are fun to play and allow students to play rhythms accurately. The puppets encourage brave, melodic singing and can also be used as steady beat buddies or as the basis of rhythmic building blocks. New, quality instruments provide a positive first impression of music class and will be especially valuable as models for each new crop of kindergarteners learning instrument etiquette.
Cochenour Law
Kim Helseth, Jim Darcy Elementary School
This grant will fund two Yoto audiobook stations with headphones, 5-way headphone splitters, and corresponding paperback book sets for all students to participate in high-interest Book Groups, allowing emerging readers to read high-interest grade-level texts and on and above-grade level readers to be pushed into higher reading level texts. Book Groups are composed of three to five students who choose books based on interest to read together and discuss. These Yoto players and book sets will allow everyone to access texts they want to read that might have once seemed too difficult.
Carol Fergerson
Sheridan Marr, Bryant Elementary School
Reading is a fundamental skill in 1st grade. With the use of the Tonie box, students can follow along with the physical book and read/listen along with the audio. The Tonie box helps promote language development, literacy skills, musical skills and social-emotional skills. The Tonie box enhances students’ literacy experience and provides students a multi-faceted learning experience. The Tonie box would be a supplemental classroom reading tool which offers a varied reading engagement experience for students who lack access to books, audio books, and vocabulary at home.
In Memory of Neva Porte
Brit McMahon, Kessler Elementary School
Students, especially non-neurotypical students, need to be taught how to maneuver in common social interactions. Kessler speech and language pathologist, school psychologist, and resource teachers will gain resources including lessons in common social interactions, how to navigate conflict, and how to process their own emotions. Common cuing language derived from these lessons will be shared with paraprofessionals, classroom teachers, and essentialists to provide consistent prompting during recess, specials, and the general education classroom so we can support our students’ abilities to engage with their peers within the classroom as well as in unstructured social situations.
Betts Family Foundation
Emily Linder, Hawthorne Elementary School
Hawthorne library will purchase new nonfiction books to enhance collection relevance, support research and exploration, and improve student learning by providing access to accurate and current information. New books will include high interest topics such as crops, 4-H and FFA, tractors and equipment, farm animals, government, national parks, presidents, states, wildlife watching, bugs, the human body, space, and weather. The updated collection will enhance the library as a research hub where students can hone essential research and writing skills.
In Memory of Jan Peccia
Hope Morrison, Smith Elementary School
Having hobbies is an important part of being a well-rounded person, and helping students learn about their hobbies is a wonderful tool for connecting with them. Students clamor for cookbooks, books about origami, books about their favorite sports, and books about the different things they love to do in their free time. This grant will fund the purchase of library books about hobbies, sports, and other recreational activities. These are wildly popular topics, and the grant will infuse the 600s and 700s shelves in the Smith library with new and exciting titles for readers!
Stockman Bank
Emily Thiessen, Project for Alternative Learning
This grant funded a collaboration with PAL students and the West Mont Flower Farm. Prior to Thanksgiving, the students traveled to the West Mont Flower Shop to learn about making flower arrangements. They used this experience to create centerpieces for their annual Thanksgiving lunch. The grant funds covered bus transportation and the purchase of flowers and other items for their projects.
Jason Loble
Talor LeBrun, Jim Darcy Elementary School
MATH MADE FUN is a collection of materials to help first grade students learn math through “out” of the box methods. These materials will consist of toys, sand, and board games, enabling students to work at different levels and with sensory-awareness materials. These math tools will also build their communication and collaboration skills, as they play games with peers. What student won’t remember learning how to write numbers in colorful sand or practicing their 1:1 counting skills with Candy Land?
DA Davidson
Joshua Jones, Hawthorne Elementary School
During sensory overstimulation, emotional dysregulation, or other forms of crisis or turmoil, students’ pre-frontal cortex is overridden by their amygdala preventing them from effectively problem solving or learning. This grant will fund the purchase of sensory reset products such as weighted blankets, stress balls, reusable ice cubes, headphones, and sensory puzzle cubes that will help students reactivate their pre-frontal cortex to restore active problem solving skills, or prevent dysregulation from reaching a crisis point, returning students to a mental state in which they are capable of learning.
Opportunity Bank
Tamara Ashley, Kessler Elementary School
Pass the Beat Around will fund the purchase of several different movement props and unpitched, hand held percussion instruments for elementary music students to use. These new instruments include guiros, wood blocks and cowbells. The addition of a smaller parachute will allow students to use it in the music room, which has a small footprint. The books, Woods Metals Shakers Skins, and Parachutes and Ribbons and Scarves Oh My! will provide the music teachers with guidance and ideas of how to best use the new instruments and movement props.
Andrew Pida and Sri Vellanki
Chelsey Davis, Four Georgians Elementary School
Student learning is enhanced when literacy and math are connected through short, engaging pieces of literature, called mentor texts. Integrating mentor texts into math instruction deepens comprehension, supports diverse learning styles, and makes abstract concepts more accessible to students. The new K-5 math curriculum puts less emphasis on rote memorization and more emphasis on fostering math discussions and using math manipulatives. By expanding teacher access to short and engaging picture books about math concepts in the new curriculum, this grant will offer students richer learning opportunities, improved comprehension, and greater confidence in applying math concepts.
Ed Clinch
Kylee Hauck, Kessler Elementary School
Many students come from busy families, and the mornings are a busy time where getting to school is the priority! Once at school, we want students to feel comfortable in their own skin so that they can be present for their lessons. If we can meet their Maslow needs, we can maximize their learning potential. The materials purchased will be used to help style the hair of students, allow for the sanitation of tools, and prepare students for learning. Styling offers a perfect opportunity for adult check and connect time with students and allows for social and emotional regulation.
Duane and Sue Wright
Dene’ Mech, Warren Elementary School
This May, fourth graders at Warren will be taking a field trip to the Lewis and Clark Caverns. They will learn about how the caverns were formed, limestone, tectonic plates, earthquakes, and erosion. They will see real-life Earth structures such as limestone, stalacities, stalagmites and caves. Students will learn more about Montana’s history, Native Americans and the discovery of the caves.
Mark Meloy
Amanda Mongillo, CR Anderson Middle School
A class set of the novel Space Case will integrate literacy skills into 6th grade science class. Sixth graders are learning about the Earth, Moon, and Sun, and this novel corresponds with units about “Geology on Mars” and “Earth, Moon, and Sun”. Reading the novel in science class will reinforce key literacy skills students are learning in their English class. This novel is written from the perspective of a 12 year-old living on the Moon, so in addition to being relevant to science class, the age of the characters allows students to closely relate to the book.
Helena Orthodontics