Swift Foundation awards grants to Mark Twain Elementary School, Capital City Circles Initiative

The Bessie Minor Swift Foundation recently awarded 33 organizations more than $67,000.

In Carson City, $2,269.75 was awarded to Mark Twain Elementary School and $2,000 was awarded to the Capital City Circles Initiative.

Mark Twain Elementary School’s project will use the literacy and music connection as a basis for instruction. It’s the school’s goal to improve student achievement in the areas of reading and composition by utilizing Orff Schulwerk practices and instruments in conjunction with children’s literature in the music classroom. Funds will purchase the Game Plan Curriculum book and children’s books for grades 1-5 along with four xylophones.

Capital City Circles Initiative is a cooperative community effort to elevate people out of poverty by intentionally creating relationships across class lines and empowering people in poverty to chart their own course toward self-sufficiency. These funds will primarily be used to purchase computers for the resource center so adult students, children and tutors can more readily access online learning programs.

The Bessie Minor Swift Foundation, formed by the owners and founder of Swift Communications — the parent company of the Nevada Appeal, awards grants to programs that promote literacy, reading and writing skills as well as programs which focus on the arts, languages and sciences. Since 2008, more than $300,000 has been awarded to organizations in the communities where Swift Communications conducts business.

The deadline for 2015 grant applications was Feb. 15 and more than 200 applications were received. The Foundation grant criteria calls for detail on how many people will be impacted by the organization’s project and how significant a role the Bessie Minor Swift Foundation will play in the program. Further, applicants must provide a complete description of the project including objectives and strategies to meet those objectives, explain how the project are going to be evaluated and submit a budget. Recipients are going to report on their results and insights from their program once the projects are completed.

The Bessie Minor Swift Foundation thanks the many groups who took the time and energy to apply and encourages those who were not selected to submit applications in the future. Applications will be accepted again starting Jan. 1, 2016 with a deadline of Feb. 15, 2016.

For more information, visit the Bessie Minor website at www.bessieminorswift.org.