Coastal Electric Members donate more than $64,000 to local schools

Thanks to the gen­eros­i­ty of Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive mem­bers, local teach­ers recent­ly received more than $40,000 in Bright Ideas grants to fund their inno­v­a­tive project ideas.

In Octo­ber, Coastal Elec­tric CEO Chris Fettes and staff vis­it­ed 29 class­rooms in Bryan, Lib­er­ty and McIn­tosh coun­ties to bring teach­ers’ inno­v­a­tive ideas to real­i­ty.

Fund­ing for Bright Ideas grants comes from Coastal Elec­tric mem­bers who allow their elec­tric bills to be round­ed up to the next dol­lar through the Oper­a­tion Round Up pro­gram. Those nick­els and dimes are pooled togeth­er and invest­ed back into the com­mu­ni­ty through the Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Foun­da­tion.

Since the incep­tion of the Bright Ideas pro­gram in 2002, almost half a mil­lion dol­lars has been award­ed to give local teach­ers the pow­er to put their cre­ative teach­ing ideas into action.

Rich­mond Hill Mid­dle School (RHMS) won sev­en Bright Ideas grants this year. Among them was Riley Scheyder’s $1,738.57 project idea to allow stu­dents to explore physics by ana­lyz­ing disc golf fris­bees and ulti­mate­ly cre­at­ing their own, which will be sent to the Pro­fes­sion­al Disc Golf Asso­ci­a­tion for approval.

RHMS’s Marin­da Walk­er, Lisa Tut­tle, Aman­da Flan­ders, and Ryan Books teamed up to write a $1,935.41 grant pro­pos­al that will fos­ter col­lab­o­ra­tion among STEAM stu­dents and spe­cial edu­ca­tion stu­dents. The project idea was sparked when stu­dents noticed a decline in the cam­pus bird pop­u­la­tion, hence the name Home Tweet Home: Habi­tat Restora­tion and Inclu­siv­i­ty. The grant will now allow them to take ini­tia­tive to solve the prob­lem by research­ing nest­ing habits, bird­house sizes, pre­ferred wild­flow­ers and diet before con­struct­ing bird­hous­es and feed­ers.

McIn­tosh Coun­ty Acad­e­my boast­ed four win­ning Bright Ideas grants this year, includ­ing Hay­ley Napfel’s $1,859.14 project, Inspir­ing Visu­al Explo­ration with a Pin­hole Cam­era. Napfel’s stu­dents will con­struct pin­hole cam­eras and learn to use them, explor­ing sci­ence and art. Stu­dents will learn pho­tog­ra­phy fun­da­men­tals like light, com­po­si­tion, expo­sure times and dark­room process­es.

Ruby Willi­ford will raise up MCA Entre­pre­neurs of the Future as stu­dents design, man­u­fac­ture, mar­ket, sell and dis­trib­ute their own school spir­it prod­ucts. Willi­ford says many of her stu­dents would like to one day start busi­ness­es, and her Bright Ideas grant will give them their first taste of the process.

At Lib­er­ty Col­lege and Career Acad­e­my, Denisia Pope’s Health­care Sci­ence asso­ciates will use vir­tu­al real­i­ty to expe­ri­ence what it’s like to live with Alzheimer’s dis­ease, the most com­mon cause of demen­tia. Her win­ning $1,840 grant project, For­get-Me-Not, will build empa­thy among bud­ding health care pro­fes­sion­als and improve health out­comes.

Lib­er­ty Coun­ty High School stu­dents will cre­ate how-to YouTube videos to serve as guides for local cit­i­zens in search of employ­ment as part of Dr. Susan McCormack’s Togeth­er We Can grant project. As a result, stu­dents will not only invest in their com­mu­ni­ty, but learn busi­ness skills like goal set­ting, action plans and project devel­op­ment.

Stu­dents at But­ton Gwin­nett Ele­men­tary School will Snap Into Sci­ence and Writ­ing, thanks to Tra­cie Chavis’ $859.73 win­ning Bright Ideas grant. Each stu­dent will receive a bot­tle of Snap­ple, which they will use to par­tic­i­pate in research projects based on fun facts found under Snap­ple lids. Stu­dents will reuse the bot­tles for a vari­ety of sci­ence exper­i­ments.

In addi­tion to Bright Ideas grants, the Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Foun­da­tion award­ed $1,000 checks to 24 prin­ci­pals in Bryan, Lib­er­ty and McIn­tosh coun­ties to be donat­ed to prin­ci­pal funds, with the inten­tion that the monies would be used to meet stu­dents’ and teach­ers’ needs through­out the school year.

To learn more about this year’s Bright Ideas grant win­ners and prin­ci­pal funds, con­nect with Coastal Elec­tric on Face­book, Insta­gram and X.