Long Creek School District is preparing to submit a grant to the Eastern Oregon Regional Action Initiative, a special project of the granting agency, the Oregon Community Foundation. The Eastern Oregon Regional Action Initiative is charged with parceling out a million dollars to nonprofits and school districts in our area for the purpose of creating after school mentoring or enrichment programs. We are working diligently to tell community members about this and to secure as much support as possible for this initiative. Our goal in writing this grant for the implementation of an after school and summer enrichment program is to excite our students about their future and their studies in a way that will also develop connections with community members and decrease risk-taking behaviors. Our intention is to showcase the myriad of career and college opportunities and provide computer based learning opportunities while honoring the history and culture of the Long Creek community.
An important aspect of this grant is to honor and include enrichment programs already in place in the school and community. These are the Long Creek Community Club 4H, the Ethos Music Program and the newly chartered FFA program. So, a big part of this grant is the addition of transportation home for students from enrichment program activities twice a week when school is in session.
We are also going to create a summer program that will run from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM Monday-Friday and includes, if all goes well, free and reduced lunches. Although it may require some scheduling changes for the three programs, they will be able to take advantage of transportation home during the school year and into the community and back home again in the summer.
Augmenting our three programs will be two new components. One will focus on all types of career opportunities from those requiring no education beyond high school to trade schools on up through four year colleges. We want our students to dream big and work hard on their studies. We also want them to honor the culture and traditions of our community. So, the second component will be after school programs that teach students and interested community members how to write articles and stories, create a newspaper or newsletter and a website to showcase the past and present of Long Creek and the surrounding area. This will teach some great computer skills that can be utilized for the rest of their lives.
Is this a big challenge? Well yes. It will be an extremely competitive grant process. But you can help. Click here for a letter of support. Please fill it out and send it back to us with your student, mail it, or drop it by the school. Although there are opportunities for you to contribute, please do not feel you must circle any volunteer choices. Just your signature indicating your support will be helpful! But, if you have a skill or any of the other items we mentioned, we appreciate your donation as well. We recently completed the advisory board for this program and two of your community members are serving. If you have questions, please chat with them. They are retired teacher Marsie Watson and Business owner Leslie Barnett. You can also call Mr. Durfee at the school. Thank you for your support and thank you to those who came to our Dessert and helped us with this plan.
