Season's Greetings from the Avon Education Foundation!!
Season's Greetings from the Avon Education Foundation!!
"Without the help of the Avon Education Foundation, my students wouldn't have all the opportunities they've been lucky enough to experience. School systems don't have unlimited funds, and just can't fund every project that individual teachers want. However, with the help of organizations like the AEF, some of these experiences can come to fruition. I am very grateful for the kindness and generosity of the grant program that the Avon Education Foundation offers. The positive impact that it has on Avon students and the community leaves a lasting impression that will be appreciated for years. " Brendan Lynch, TBS Teacher and Fall 2018 grant award recipient
See below for Fall 2018 Grant Awards Announcement!!
As you consider your year-end gifts, please keep the Avon Education Foundation on your list and help us to continue our work supporting creative educational programs and projects in our town.
General donations, United Way workplace Community Campaigns, and Employer Matching programs are all great ways to help us help the Avon community!
Name A Grant
With a donation of $1,000 or more, you have the opportunity to Name A Grant! You can name it for yourself, your family or a loved one. What a meaningful way to honor someone!!
Thank you to our generous donors, grant applicants, grant recipients, grant readers, volunteers, and other friends in the Avon community!! Supporters like you make our impact and our successes possible!
Need a holiday gift idea? Honor an Avon teacher, school administrator, secretary, coach or any Avon town or public library employee who has made a difference in the life of your student with a gift of a C.H.E.E.R. certificate. Go to our website to order the certificate with a credit card or download the form; click on "Ways to Give" and "CHEER Award".
THANK YOU!!
Donate now at www.avonedfoundation.org
questions? contact the AEF Chair at bethzweibel@gmail.com
Congratulations to our Fall 2018 grant recipients:
Prize Patrols and Photos will be coming in January 2019!
The Avon Education Foundation is proud to announce two grants awarded:
A Program grant for $3,610 for “The Lost Boys of Sudan and Their Immigrant Experience”, a Town-Wide Collaborative Project between the Avon Free Public Library, Thompson Brook School, Avon High School and the Avon Senior Center.
A Mini-Grant for $960 to TBS teacher Brendan Lynch for his project titled, “Escape Classroom”, based on the popular Escape Room activity.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Please read these comments from the Grant Recipients describing their grants and talking about the positive and meaningful impact these grants will have on all learners in Avon:
From Tina Panik & Patrice Celli, AFPL:
“The Avon Library is excited to return to the story of Alepho and the Lost Boys, as community conversations on immigration and refugees are as relevant today as they were when we first hosted the Lost Boys in 2009, of which the AEF was a funder too. It's rare that a community can return to an original project with a new perspective and stories, attracting and renewing participation among residents of all ages. Objectives of this program include encouraging students and community members to be attentive to and engaged in geopolitical issues, personal humanitarian responsibility and inter-generational literary events."
From Julia Cowans-Wilhelm, TBS:
“We at TBS are very appreciative of the AEF Grant that will enable authors Alephonsion Deng and Judy A. Bernstein to travel to Avon and spend time with the TBS students and Avon community. Our students have not had an author visit at TBS in several years, so having an author who is a survivor of the Lost Boys of Sudan with us will be an extraordinary experience. Students are currently reading A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Parks which is an age appropriate historical fiction version of Alepho and his co-authors real life experience which was explored in their memoir They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky (2005).
We are excited to be able to bring the issues in a text to life with real people who have lived the history the story shares. Students will gain a much richer understanding of their curriculum / reading and the humanitarian concerns their text reveals as a result of their dialog with Alepho about his journey, his refugee status, and his immigration to the US where he met his current co-author Judy Bernstein. Furthermore, they may choose to participate in the community wide discussions with their families and Avon citizens to become more informed about refugees and immigration challenges. We hope that students will be inspired by Alepho's resilience and that they will value literature that chronicles real experiences and human crises.”
From Stu Abrams, AHS:
“The Avon High School community is both thrilled and thankful for receiving an AEF grant, which will once again bring Alephonsion Deng along with his co-author Judy Bernstein to our school community.
We were fortunate to have had Alephonsion Deng visit us at the high school in 2009 to speak to our Senior Human Rights class regarding his memoir, They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky (2005). I vividly remember the reaction of the students to the testimony given at that time by Alephonsion and his colleagues. Powerful to say the least. There are few things students find more impactful than first person testimony in better understanding human behavior and at the same time promoting the learning process.
Since that time, a new required course for sophomores has begun at Avon High School titled, “Human Rights in a Modern World.” The focus of this course is to study world events and issues from World War I to the present through the lens of Human Rights. I can think of no better way to advance this study of Human Rights and Social Justice than a visit by Alephonsion and Judy to help further our discussion relative to refugees, immigration, a path to American citizenship, the power of language and the relationship of these concepts to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Our students are messengers to a time that some of us shall not see. I also believe that we are all heroes in waiting just waiting for our opportunity to demonstrate our courage and our heroism. I believe that exposure to opportunities such as this helps prepare our students - in a powerful and decisive way – to act and behave heroically when the time comes – and it will – to promote the values set forth in the UDHR and the ideals and principles that we promote at Avon High School."
The AEF is proud to fund a $960 Mini-Grant for TBS teacher Brendan Lynch for his “Escape Classroom Project.”
Please read these inspiring words from Mr. Lynch regarding the AEF and how the AEF has positively impacted TBS and the Avon community:
From Brendan Lynch, TBS
My first experience with the AEF was when we received the Classroom Access to 21st Century Technology Grant in 2011. This grant provided DLP projectors to classrooms at Thompson Brook. This was before Smart Boards were available in each classroom so on the surface, it was just a projector. However, this projector literally changed the way that students learned. Prior to this, teachers who wanted to show a 20 second clip of a plant's life cycle, project a portrait of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, or display an animation of three-dimensional shapes would have to gather 20+ students around a 19-inch computer screen. It was not practical, nor was it intriguing enough for students who had far superior technology outside of school. This simple projector began to slowly transform the way students were instructed, and gave teachers options that were not always available in the past. Students greatly benefited from these technology upgrades. The AEF helped kickstart a technology revolution in Avon schools that was supported over the next few years.
Given my positive experience with the AEF in the past, I was thrilled to once again give my students a new opportunity with the AEF's help. In the spring of 2015, I received a mini-grant for a Book Publishing Project. The goal was to have my next year's fifth grade class write and publish a book. In 2016 my class wrote a book called 1,665 Things You Should Never Do. The book was a great success and my students were featured on the Better Connecticut television show, in local newspapers, and on Radio 104.1. They also held public and private events at local venues. Their first book also helped raise money for the LOL Project (created by a former student), which put hundreds of copies of the books in doctor's offices and hospitals all across the northeast for sick children to enjoy. In 2017 my students wrote a book called Guess It, and on Thanksgiving Day the latest book was released - The Bacon Fell On The Floor and other shocking six word stories. Their books sold thousands of copies all over the world, and all profits helped fund future writing projects for my students, paying it forward to the next group of writers.
My most recent mini-grant from the AEF is going to fund a class set of Escape Classroom kits. Over the last few years, Escape Rooms have been exploding in popularity all over the United States. An escape room is a team-based puzzle game, where you are locked in a room and have to collaboratively solve puzzles, riddles, or other challenges together to get out. This experience will now be possible in the classroom, in a way that teachers could utilize the tools to create their own Escape Classrooms, incorporating any subject area into the theme. In a world of high stakes testing and data driven instruction, any opportunity to bring in a fun, interactive experience into the classroom, while still meeting necessary education standards, is very much valued.
Without the help of the Avon Education Foundation, my students wouldn't have all the opportunities they've been lucky enough to experience. School systems don't have unlimited funds, and just can't fund every project that individual teachers want. However, with the help of organizations like the AEF, some of these experiences can come to fruition. I am very grateful for the kindness and generosity of the grant program that the Avon Education Foundation offers. The positive impact that it has on Avon students and the community leaves a lasting impression that will be appreciated for years.
The Avon Education Foundation (AEF) is a 501(c)(3), non-profit, tax-exempt organization. This means that qualifying donations are tax-deductible as permitted by law. It also means that many employers will match your gift to the AEF, so please check to see if your company has a matching gift program.
THANK YOU!!