By SCOTT MIMS | Special to the Reporter

The Shelby County Schools Education Foundation is now accepting applications for its spring 2023 “Inspire the Journey” Grants.

The grants are open to anyone on staff with the Shelby County Schools district and may be used to fund much-needed equipment, consultants, materials or other project costs for a classroom, department or area of service within Shelby County Schools.

The application deadline is Feb. 12, 2023, at midnight.

“In order to set up a classroom, teachers have very limited funds in order to do so,” said Bethany Ivey, executive director of the Shelby County Schools Education Foundation. “With the rapid pace that technology is advancing, this allows our teachers to have resources in the classrooms that help them better connect with students that are very technologically savvy.”

According to the grant application requirements, each Inspire the Journey Grant may be applied for up to $1,000 by an individual teacher or up to $2,000 by a group of two or more teachers, with total funding not to exceed $1,500 per teacher; there is no limit to the number of grant applications a teacher may submit.

Each requested grant must have a title and must include a detailed budget; only those applicants who have a budgeted plan for their CIS Funds, or those who will use remaining CIS Funds to fulfill the grant will be considered.

An impartial panel will review all submitted applications. Recipients will be selected based on a scoring rubric; items such as adherence to grant specifications and spelling and grammar will be taken into consideration.

Inspire the Journey Grants have been used to fund hands-on classroom projects such as STEM labs, which allow students to have real-life, tangible experiences within the classroom setting, Ivey indicated.

“Educating kids to be successful in the world just looks very different, and it’s really neat what’s happening in the walls of our schools,” she said.

The Foundation has $30,000 in funding that will be awarded through events like Taste of Shelby County, through the Foundation’s partnership with Regions Bank, Ivey noted.