Lexington County School District One Educational Foundation

Foundation scholarships each have separate applications and criteria,but all fund educational expenses for the recipients that may cover higher education expenses like tuition, room, board, or books. Checks are written to student's choice college or university and to the student, so that the higher education institution must credit the scholarship award to the student's college expenses. Scholarships of $18,500 were awarded for fiscal year 2024. Higher education support grants are awarded annually to lexington county school district one poverty-stricken seniors who are pursuing college and need financial assistance with the purchase of typical college expenses for their dorm rooms and/or tuition. Students must complete an application, including details of their financial situation, and be selected by a grant committee to receive a grant that can purchase items like sheet sets, comforter, towels, pillow, desk lamp, laptop, and other needed items to help ensure success in their future pursuits of higher education. Twelve (12) dorm room grants of $1,000, totaling $12,000, were awarded for fiscal year 2024. Sixteen (16) higher education support grants of $1,000, totaling $9,500, were paid for fiscal year 2024.

Leap assistance - funds used from the lexington emergency assistance program are designated to a leap crisis fund that offers financial and/or in-kind services to lexington school district one permanent full-time employees, permanent part-time employees (not to include substitutes), and lexington one students to assist them during a crisis such as a serious illness, natural disaster or financial hardship. The crisis must have occurred within the last 90 days. Services approved and paid for through these restricted funds could include medical bills, utilities, food, clothing, and other expenses on the approved list. Leap pays funds directly to the place of business (i.e., directly to the hospital for covering a patient's medical bills) or makes awards in the form of gift cards (i.e., groceries) and will not award cash directly to an approved individual recipient. For the 2023-2024 fiscal year, leap funds exclude any payments for housing insurance, vehicle purchases/vehicle insurance, and security deposits. Also, worker's compensation recipients are ineligible for assistance. In addition, leap provided need-based international teacher grants.

The foundation's board of directors awarded $25,000 in "bucks for books" grants to lexington county school district one to support literacy efforts at all seventeen (17) of the district's elementary schools. Innovation grants for k-8 schools for fiscal year 2024 - grants of up to $5,000 each with a required 10% match were awarded to elementary and middle schools for educational projects that address one or more of the district's pathways toward college, career, and citizenship preparedness in innovative ways. In 2023-2024, funds provided grants for virtual & augmented reality instructional tools; stem bins for creating, collaborating, and imagining; for lego spike kits and curriculum for steam education (computer science, critical and computational thinking) in three schools; decodable books and tools to strengthen literacy skills; items forlife-skills learning lab for special needs students; and items to create maker space learning lab. Awards totaled $25,000 in fy2024.robotics team grants were provided to a number of middle and high schools to fund the expenses of robotics teams competition. These grants support education through providing students with opportunities to apply s.t.e.m. Learning to real life situations and competitions with other schools. The grant provided for a total of $10,000 to be disbursed among participating schools.michelin golden apple teacher grants provide grants up to $250 each to teachers to fund classroom needs that would not be available otherwise and enhance creativity and learning. Examples of projects funded included growing plants to teach science and life skills to students; books to strengthen reading and math literacy skills; model building kits and go mouse robots for stem education; pedometers to teach how to to measure physical health goals in pe; and books for reading recovery. Foundation awarded $3,866 in michelin golden apple teacher grants for fiscal year 2024.the foundation provided additional assistance to lexington county school district one for various programs totaling $27,690.84 for fiscal year 2024 that included $10,628 in caring hearts grants and $3,673 in esol grants.