Featured Grant Opportunity: National School Lunch Program (NSLP) Equipment Assistance Grant NY
Many of the grant opportunities we feature on the blog have a national or regional presence. This opportunity is specifically for schools located in New York State.
The New York State Education Department is offering New York schools an opportunity for food service equipment through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) Equipment Assistance Grant for School Food Authorities. The equipment being funded through the grant will allow schools to supplement existing equipment with additional resources to serve healthier meals that meet the updated meal patterns, improve the overall quality of meals, improve efficiency of production and service, and expand participation in the program.
Grant applications are due December 1st, 2014. Awards are a minimum of $2,000 and a maximum of $20,000 per school. Priority will be given to schools with 50 percent or more students eligible for free/reduced price lunch. Each piece of requested equipment requires its own application.
Often times schools are struggling to replace or enhance their current food service equipment and are prohibited from giving students the healthiest and best possible service. With almost $2,000,000 available in total funding, this is an opportunity that most New York State schools are eligible for and consider. Please note the following eligibility allowances and restrictions, “All schools under a School Food Authority (SFA) in the NSLP are eligible – public school districts, non-profit nonpublic schools, charter schools and residential child care institutions in the NSLP in New York State except schools that received the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Food Service Equipment Grant in 2009-2010 or the FY 2010 Equipment Assistance Grant in 2010-2011.” To see full information on the program, including the list of ineligible schools and the grant application, visit the NYSED website.
Featured Grant Opportunity: Eat Well Play More Vermont Fall 2014
Many of the grant opportunities we feature on the blog have a national or regional presence. This opportunity is specifically for public and private schools located in Vermont.
Eat Well Play More of Vermont is offering a very interesting grant opportunity. Applicants are to produce a short video that shows an existing program or talks about an idea for a program the school would like to implement. Examples given by EWPM include morning running programs, physical activity in the classroom, healthy snack programs, and other innovative ways schools are helping students to eat well and play more.
Up to 14 schools will receive grants of up to $3,000.00 for related physical activity or nutrition programs. For more details and the grant application on this fun program,visit the Eat Well Play More Vermont Grants page.
One of the great things about this grant program is that all videos that meet the guidelines will be posted on the EWPM website. This idea-sharing format will ensure schools and organizations looking to improve their existing programs can leverage the great ideas and proven successful models of others!
Featured Grant Opportunity: Whole Kids Foundation School Garden Grant
School gardens have been proven to be educational and positive for students. Giving kids the chance to learn about the science of growing food and being rewarded with healthy offerings from their hard work can go a long way with nutrition education. The Whole Kids Foundation, in partnership with FoodCorps, is offering funding opportunities through its terrific School Garden Grant Program to make this a reality for your school, or help you keep your existing garden growing.
The program is open to K-12 schools, or a non-profit working in partnership with a K-12 school, to support new or existing edible gardens on school grounds. Applications are due by October 31st, 2014. Awardees will receive a $2,000 monetary grant.
For all the details on the program and to access the application, visit the Whole Kids Foundation website.
ED Press Release: U.S. Department of Education Announces Awards of Over $70 Million to Improve School Climate and Keep Students Safe
The U.S. Department of Education has announced funding awards through four new grant programs designed to help keep students safe and improve learning environments. These programs are School Climate Transformation grants to school districts, School Climate Transformation grants to states, Project Prevent grants to school districts, and School Emergency Management grants to states. To see the list of winners for each program as well as detailed information on the program initiatives view the US ED press release.
The Insight Team would like to congratulate two of our clients who were fortunate to be awarded funding in these important new programs. Cleveland Hill Union Free School District, NY, was awarded a 2014 School Climate Transformation Grant for LEAs. Cleveland Hill’s Year 1 award amount is $222,037, and the five-year award is anticipated to be $1,095,493. New London Public Schools, CT, was awarded a 2014 Project Prevent Grant. New London’s Year 1 award amount is $616,131, and the total five-year award anticipated to be between $2.5 and $2.9 million.
Updates to 2014 CDC SHI Tool
Many schools are familiar with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) School Health Index (SHI) interactive assessment tool. Whether you’ve used it for assessment in the past or will be in the future, it is an important tool to understand.
This self-assessment tool enables schools to identify strengths and weaknesses of health and safety policies and programs and develop action plans for improving student health promotion based on federal recommendations and national standards. It is a common assessment tool utilized by schools working to improve student health through changes made with local resources, as well as a useful tool for identifying needs during the grant application process and for monitoring improvement during the grant implementation process. In fact, completion of Modules 1-4 of the School Health Index is a requirement for applying for a Carol M. White PEP grant, and PEP grant awardees must re-administer SHI by the end of their grant periods to determine progress made.
The CDC recently announced updates to the tool for 2014. These changes include updated nutrition content to align with new USDA regulations (including Smart Snacks in School nutrition standards), and revised physical education and physical activity content to align with updated national standards and advancements in physical activity programming. In addition to the changes, The Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s Healthy Schools Program has also adopted CDC’s School Health Index as its assessment tool to help schools assess their current policies and practices as well as track progress over time.
Two versions of the SHI are made available by the CDC. Version 1 retains the full comprehensive SHI, with its six health topics: nutrition, physical activity, unintentional injury and violence prevention, tobacco use prevention, asthma, and sexual health. Version 2 is focused on just two health topics: nutrition and physical activity.
To learn more about the tool, the changes, and get started with an assessment, access the SHI tool on cdc.gov
We’ll also have some additional content in the near future with more details on using the SHI tool.
Featured Grant Opportunities: Finish Line Youth Foundation
Many people are familiar with Finish Line as a store for athletic gear and all kinds of cool footwear, but did you know they offer multiple different grant opportunities? With a goal of “supporting the communities where our customers and employees work and play” the Finish Line Youth Foundation backs up this motto with grant funding.
The FLYF offers three types of grants:
Regular Grants – These grants go target youth athletic programs as well as established camps with an emphasis on sports and active lifestyle.
Founder’s Grants – Also known as emergency fund grants, these grants are targeted toward organizations who are experiencing unforeseen circumstances that may prohibit the organization from providing current services. Awards are made in the amount of $5,000 to $25,000.
Legacy Grants – These grants are targeted toward organizations in need of improvements and/or renovations to existing buildings, facilities, or grounds as well as organizations in need of new facilities. Awards are made in the amount of $10,000 to $75,000.
The Board of Directors meets one month after each quarter to review qualified grant applications. A schedule of the 2014 grant cycle can be found at the FLYF review page.
If you are interested in the program and would like more information as well as finding out about your eligibility, visit the FLYF page where you can take an online eligibility quiz, see success stories, and find out exactly what interest areas and guidelines the Finish Line Youth Foundation has for funding.
Featured Grant Opportunity: School Justice Collaboration Program: Keeping Kids in School and Out of Court
The Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention is offering a federal grant opportunity, titled School Justice Collaboration Program: Keeping Kids in School and Out of Court. The OJDDP is partnering with the Department of Education and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for this program.
The goal of the program is to enhance collaboration and coordination among schools, mental and behavioral health specialists, law enforcement, and juvenile justice officials at the local level to ensure adults have the support, training, and a shared framework to help students succeed in school and prevent negative outcomes for youth and communities.
Further Information on eligibility from grants.gov:
This initiative includes two categories, and the eligibility differs for each:
• Category 1: Local School Justice Collaboration Program. Applicants are limited to local juvenile and family courts (including rural and tribal juvenile and family courts) that can verify that they have a partnership—with a local education agency (LEA) that has applied to the Department of Education’s School Climate Transformation Grants-LEA (SCTG) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Now Is the Time Project AWARE–LEA programs. Additionally, applicants must partner with local law enforcement (via subgrants) as part of their collaborative effort. To meet these eligibility criteria, applicants must provide a letter of commitment or agreement, as described in the RFP, and the Grants.gov tracking numbers for the SCTG and Project AWARE grant programs applications. Awards under this category may be made only to juvenile and family courts in communities that have been awarded Department of Education School Climate Transformation Grants. A factor that will be considered in selection is whether an application also provides a plan to collaborate with the LEA on SAMHSA’s Now Is The Time Project AWARE-LEA program.
• Category 2: School Justice Collaboration Program National Training and Technical Assistance. Applicants are limited to nonprofit and for-profit organizations (including tribal nonprofit and for-profit organizations) and institutions of higher education (including tribal institutions of higher education). For-profit organizations must agree to forgo any profit or management fee.
When is the Deadline? July 21st, 2014.
Where Can I Get More Information? Visit the grant program page at grants.gov
The Promise Zone Initiative
With several currently open US Department of Education Grants (Project Prevent, Full Service Community Schools, and School Climate Transformation for LEAs) offering Competitive Preference (bonus) points for coordinating with the Promise Zone if the applicant is serving students within the Promise Zone, we thought it would be helpful to outline some basics on this.
What is the Promise Zone Initiative? During the 2013 State of the Union Address, President Obama laid out an initiative to designate a number of high-poverty urban, rural and tribal communities as Promise Zones. In these Zones, the federal government will partner with and invest in communities to create jobs, leverage private investment, increase economic activity, expand educational opportunities, and improve public safety.
Where are the current Promise Zones? Philadelphia (PA), San Antonio (TX), Los Angeles (CA), Kentucky Highlands (KY), and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (OK).
Will additional Promise Zones be added in the future? There are currently plans for 15 more communities to be added in the next three years.
What are the grant implications for Promise Zones? As we are seeing with currently open grant opportunities, applicants serving persons in Promise Zones are given priority. Under the US Department of Education, this is playing out as Competitive Preference (bonus) points. Other grant programs are expected to offer bonus points or other methods for prioritizing applicants coordinating with Promise Zones.
Where can I get more information on Promise Zones? Visit the Promise Zones page at OneCPD Resource Exchange, and check out this fact sheet from whitehouse.gov
Featured Grant Opportunity: Captain Planet Foundation Ecotech Grant Program
The Captain Planet Foundation is offering a competitive grant program in partnership with the Ray C. Anderson Foundation. Awards are made for the purpose of engaging children in inquiry-based projects in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) that use innovation, biomimicry / nature-based design, or new uses for technology to address environmental problems in their communities.
Award: (16) $2500 grants.
Who Can Apply? Schools or non-profit organizations.
When is the Deadline? Applications opened January 15, 2014 and will be accepted through May 31st, 2014. Awards are for projects to be conducted in the Summer and/or Fall of 2014.
Something Cool or Unique About This Opportunity: Considering it is the Captain Planet Foundation, everything about this grant is cool. Check out some of the examples of Ecotech projects previously funded on the Captain Planet Foundation page.
Where Can I get More Information? Get full information at CaptainPlanetFoundation.org and grant guidelines here:
http://captainplanetfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/CPF-Guidelines-EcoTech-GrantsFINAL.pdf
Spring 2014 Insight Company News and Notes
The Insight Team has been busy on a number of projects to start 2014. We hope the year has started off well for you. Here are some notes on current items our team has been working on.
- We’ve been making an effort to highlight featured grant opportunities on the Insight blog. While the focus of the grants is often based around physical education, we will also be featuring and discussing a wide variety of grants that cover other industries and topics as well. We also offer some very helpful sources for finding grant opportunities online at our Find Grants page. If you are in the early stages of looking for grant opportunities, that is definitely a good place to start. To stay up to date with the ongoing opportunities we feature, you can subscribe to our blog via email or follow Insight Grants on twitter.
- We’ve recently completed multiple grant proposals as well as editing for various clients. Project topics have varied from physical activity to fire departments. Although we can’t share details on these projects yet, we look forward to talking about some of the innovative and exciting projects if funding is awarded.
- Working on applications for the Carol M. White PEP grant program is usually a big spring project for the Insight Team. With no new PEP competition in 2014, it’s important for those interested in physical activity funding to watch for other opportunities and maximize the time they have before the next competition (anticipated 2015). For more information, see our blog post titled, No 2014 PEP Competition?! What Do We Do Now? Applicants from 2013 that scored highly but did not win may be awarded PEP grants in 2014. We’ve started hearing about the first winners TODAY (4/8/2014), as some members of Congress have begun contacting winners in their constituencies. If you’ve won, you may or may not hear directly from Congress, but you WILL eventually hear directly from ED via email and/or mail and you would be listed on the awards list which should surface soon.
- Speaking of PEP, although there is no guarantee of a 2015 PEP competition, we do anticipate one. We’ve already begun signing up and working with applicants interested in applying in 2015. With the competition becoming more and more competitive each year, it helps to get some pieces of your project in order far in advance, and an early start makes this more achievable. If you are interested in working with us for your PEP Grant project, contact us.
- We’re working with various PEP Grant winners to evaluate their ongoing projects. It is amazing to see the hard work of the project directors, school staff, and community stakeholders pay off with students improving fitness levels, nutrition habits, and education. We’ve featured aspects from Kenston Schools in Ohio and the Police Athletic League in NYC, and look forward to sharing more good news from PEP projects in the future.
- We’ve been working with our long-time partner Polar to create some exciting new web resources for grant seekers interested in including Polar products and services in their grant projects! We’ll be posting more on those soon.
- We are currently working with several schools on US ED Elementary and Secondary School Counseling grant applications due 4/28/2014.
- We have begun promoting three exciting US ED grant programs that are expected to open competitions within the month: School Climate Transformations grants for LEAs (school safety), Project Prevent (school safety), and Full Service Community Schools (covers MANY topic areas).
If you’d like us to assist you with your grant application or project evaluation, please contact us.
