Our Grants

The $8,500 grant from the Foundation provided computer equipment necessary to establish the E-Gaming Club room at Hickman. E-gaming is growing across the country. Hickman currently has two clubs, with two teams for each game, League of Legends and Overwatch.

Grant Funds Requested: $8,500

Students from all six CPS middle schools were bused to the Missouri Theater to hear Jacqueline Woodson speak on April 19, 2019, as part of the Unbound Book Festival. The grant provided Woodson’s books for all the middle schools as well as transportation for students to the festival.

Grant Funds Requested: $5,000

11th-grade students from Battle and Rock Bridge traveled to Washington, D.C., over their spring break to use the nation’s capital as a living classroom and learn about being engaged citizens.

Grant Funds Requested: $8,000

This grant purchases equipment for the Geometry in Construction (GIC) and Algebra in Manufacturing Processes Entrepreneurship and Design (AMPED) classes at Battle High School. Students in the GIC course build a tiny house for a family in the community. Students in AMPED operate a business running a lab customing textile products and other items.

Grant Funds Requested: $52,384

The grant provides screening rights for each CPS middle and high school campus for the film Big Sonia, a documentary about then 91-year old Sonia Warshawski, one of the last remaining Holocaust survivors who resides in Kansas City. Students held a Q&A with director Leah Warshawski after viewing the film. The grant also included a free community screening of the film, as well as a speaking engagement and Meet & Greet with Sonia herself. The grant also included purchasing copies of the DVD for the Columbia Public Library.

Grant Funds Requested: $8,000

As part of CPS’s Chinese program, students can take a two‐week trip to Shanghai and Beijing for language and culture learning. This was the fourth year of the trip, covered by the Chinese Ministry of Education. Once the students are in China, they are hosted by Shanghai Normal University, the leading teacher college in Shanghai. This year 18 students, from freshmen to seniors, traveled to China from July 3-16. CPSF grant funds covered the airfare, along with Veterans United and the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Grant Funds Requested: $7,000

Families new to Columbia have a welcoming space to gather and seek services, thanks to a 2017 grant for the Family Welcome Center, located inside the CPS Aslin Administration Building at 1818 W. Worley in Columbia. Grant funds went to renovating the area and providing new furniture to create a more welcome space for families of English Language Learner (ELL) students who are being evaluated.

Grant Funds Requested: $22,793

The Foundation grant provided funds for author visits to CPS schools as well as materials for students to read books by the authors prior to the visits. Authors visited students at Shepard, New Haven, Ridgeway, Fairview and Blue Ridge Elementary Schools; Oakland, Gentry and West Middle Schools; and all four CPS high schools, Hickman, Battle, Rock Bridge and Douglass. The Authors in Schools program is part of the Unbound Book Festival.

Grant Funds Requested: $15,000

The CPS drumline group is the only high school from the United States selected to participate in the 2018 Japanese summer festival in Nagano. During the trip, from Aug. 3-10, the students will have the opportunity to rehearse with 1,000 Japanese marching band students. The trip also includes cultural site visits and a ceremonial meeting with the local governor. The grant covered the costs of passports and provided two cultural experiences, including etiquette lessons, for the students. The Foundation funds also include the creation of a CPSF flag for use during the festival’s opening ceremonies.

Grant Funds Requested: $2,950