Golden Apple Foundation grants empower local educators

The Golden Apple Foundation awarded grants to local educators, turning their classroom project ideas into a reality.

“The Golden Apple Foundation recognizes teachers and empowers them with grants and resources to help improve learning outcomes in the classroom,” said executive director Jennifer Stark.

At Rockford’s Japanese Anderson Gardens, over 70 teachers received grants to fund classroom projects, which usually come out of their pockets. 

“They can know the community cares about them, cares about their students, and wants to support them financially in this way. A lot of times, these are low-income students who haven’t had an opportunity to Chicago to see the Adler Planetarium,” explained Stark.

Allie Rhyner, a special education teacher, won $2,500 in grant money. As a school board member in Sherman, she stated that she wanted to help restock the library’s outdated books.

“It’s a pretty well-known fact that teachers spend a lot of money on their own classrooms. And with that, we have to set a limit. What will help all of our students? As so, what we looked into was getting more diverse titles, biographies, things for K through 8 students to use,” shared Rhyner. 

Each grant will directly help teachers to better educate their students.

“It’s all pouring back into schools and allowing us to give kids what they need to improve. We are able to expose students to things that they aren’t able to be exposed to, maybe when they’re just at school, but they can learn about new people, new experiences, new places,” said Rhyner.