Coastal Electric Cooperative members donate more than $40,000 to local schools

/ Cooperative News, Education / 3 minutes of reading
Logo for Bright Ideas Education Grants featuring a green light bulb outline and bold black text on a white background.

This fall, the Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Foun­da­tion brought big smiles and even big­ger sur­pris­es to class­rooms across Bryan, Lib­er­ty and McIn­tosh coun­ties, award­ing more than $40,000 in Bright Ideas edu­ca­tion grants to local teach­ers.

Thanks to co-op mem­bers who allow their elec­tric bills to be round­ed up to the next whole dol­lar each month as part of Oper­a­tion Round Up and donat­ed to the foun­da­tion, these grants turn inno­v­a­tive teach­ing ideas into reality—like smart gar­den­ing, hands-on health­care learn­ing and real-world sci­ence projects.

Since 2002, the Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Foun­da­tion has award­ed around half a mil­lion dol­lars through the Bright Ideas pro­gram, empow­er­ing edu­ca­tors to bring cre­ativ­i­ty to life in their class­rooms.

Here are a few of this year’s win­ners:

A smiling person holds a large check awarded to Carver Elementary School, highlighting a grant amount of $1,643.47 for educational purposes.
Thanks to a $1,643 grant, Melis­sa Aguilar’s Carv­er Ele­men­tary School stu­dents will plan sim­ple cir­cuits with class­mates and use con­duc­tive mod­el­ing clay to com­plete and test real elec­tri­cal cir­cuits.
Two people in a classroom hold a large check, surrounded by educational posters. A camera and microphone are visible.
As part of Jen­nifer Brant’s $1,465 grant, Lib­er­ty Ele­men­tary School stu­dents will become Young Coastal Ornithol­o­gists, learn­ing to iden­ti­fy local bird species, doc­u­ment their find­ings and con­tribute data to the Cor­nell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird cit­i­zen sci­ence plat­form.
A group of people smiling indoors, holding a large check for Liberty College & Career Academy from Coastal Electric's Bright Ideas program.
At Lib­er­ty Col­lege and Career Acad­e­my, stu­dents prepar­ing for careers in health care will assess car­dio­vas­cu­lar health using a sim­u­la­tion cuff thanks to a $1,600 grant. The cuff will allow stu­dents to prac­tice this chal­leng­ing skill set in a risk- free envi­ron­ment before work­ing with patients, equip­ping them for clin­i­cal rota­tions and deep­en­ing their under­stand­ing of car­dio­vas­cu­lar func­tion.
Two people smiling in a classroom holding a large ceremonial check for Richmond Hill Middle School, labeled with "Bright Ideas Education Grants."
With her $1,515 grant, Rich­mond Hill Mid­dle School’s Audra Esquiv­el plans to help stu­dents research real-world water ero­sion and flood con­trol meth­ods, eval­u­at­ing which strate­gies may be most effec­tive in pro­tect­ing com­mu­ni­ties.
A group of people and students hold a large check for Richmond Hill High School in a classroom setting.
Rich­mond Hill High School’s Stephen Peter­son, Den­nis Moore, Corey Fick­iesen and Joshua Romain will use a $1,971.40 grant to lead their stu­dents in learn­ing elec­tri­cal cir­cuit­ry, volt­age, cur­rent and resis­tance, series and par­al­lel con­nec­tions, and elec­tro­mag­net­ism. They will inte­grate cus­tom-built cir­cuits with cus­tom code to pow­er solu­tions.
A group of people and students hold a large check for Richmond Hill High School in a classroom setting.
Rich­mond Hill High School’s Stephen Peter­son, Den­nis Moore, Corey Fick­iesen and Joshua Romain will use a $1,971.40 grant to lead their stu­dents in learn­ing elec­tri­cal cir­cuit­ry, volt­age, cur­rent and resis­tance, series and par­al­lel con­nec­tions, and elec­tro­mag­net­ism. They will inte­grate cus­tom-built cir­cuits with cus­tom code to pow­er solu­tions.
Two people stand in a hallway holding a large ceremonial check for $2,000, labeled "Bright Ideas Education Grants" and "McIntosh County Academy."
With Cather­ine Mayne’s $2,000 grant, McIn­tosh Coun­ty Acad­e­my stu­dents will design and con­struct bridges using 3D fil­a­ment pens, explor­ing how 2D shapes form 3D objects that play into the over­all design and struc­ture of engi­neer­ing a bridge.
A group of children and a person hold a large check in a colorful classroom with educational posters on the walls.
At Tay­lors Creek Ele­men­tary School, Tasha Spears’s kinder- garten­ers will enjoy the fruits of her $1,976 grant—literally! Stu­dents will plant seeds, observe plant life cycles, mea­sure growth, main­tain gar­den jour­nals and use recy­clables to design tools and green­hous­es to ben­e­fit the plants. After­ward, they’ll get to sam­ple their har­vest in class.
A group of students and a person in a classroom celebrate with a symbolic check. Posters and educational materials are displayed.
With Amy Beasley’s $1,979 grant, Rich­mond Hill Mid­dle School stu­dents will visu­al­ize how Earth’s crust inter­acts and trans­forms bound­aries by design­ing their own 3D mod­els to manip­u­late.
Two people holding a large Bright Ideas check for McIntosh County Academy, awarded for Black Box Theatre. Classroom setting with educational posters.
Amy Lovin’s $1,912 grant will help fund the ren­o­va­tion of an under­used space into a mul­ti — dis­ci­pli­nary black box the­atre for dra­ma, music, film, social stud­ies and lit­er­a­ture stu­dents to use for cre­ative expres­sion and skill devel­op­ment at McIn­tosh Coun­ty Acad­e­my. Stu­dents will par­tic­i­pate in the ren­o­va­tion project.

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