Polk County Schools&squo; 21st Century Community Learning Center afterschool program received an award of $3,500 from the NC Civic Education Consortium&squo;s Small Grants program. Two Polk County elementary schools and one middle school partnered with Thermal Belt Outreach, Foothills Humane Society and Foothills Equestrian Nature Center to design and implement service projects that met each organization&squo;s specific needs.

After extensive research and planning with the non-profits&squo; Executive Directors and some of their Board members, the students completed the following projects: collection of food for the pantry at Thermal Belt Outreach, collection of food and toys for the animals at Foothills Humane Society and construction of a &dquo;sand table&dquo; for use by campers at FENCE.

These projects, entitled the Community Project-Based Learning Opportunity was recently featured in the University of North Carolina&squo;s Civics Education Consortium newsletter. The entire article can be found under the &dquo;publications&dquo; link at http://www.civics.org.

&dquo;It&squo;s been amazing to see students get the &squo;bigger picture&squo; of community service,&dquo; said Emily Bartlett, project coordinator and director of Polk County&squo;s 21st Century Community Learning Center. &dquo;Through participation in this project, our students have gained a true understanding that it is each of our responsibilities to give back to our communities.&dquo;

As part of the project, the students at Polk Central Elementary and Polk County Middle Schools worked with the Foothills Humane Society, FENCE and Thermal Belt Outreach Ministries to learn about non-profits, how they function and what they do for the community.

The students covered key concepts that included Boards of Directors, Executive Directors, Mission Statements, Funding Streams, Tax Exemptions and Volunteer Labor.

During the project, the students researched the organizations and met with their Executive Directors in order to design and implement projects that would benefit that organization. Each student group received $250.00 to implement their project. The students also documented their projects.

The project was funded through a grant from the North Carolina Civic Education Consortium, part of the University of North Carolina&squo;s School of Government, through a grant from the Z. Smith Reynold&squo;s Foundation.

Since 1999, the NC Civic Education Consortium&squo;s Small Grants program has awarded over $607,000 in Small Grants to 101 projects in 84 North Carolina counties.

The Small Grants program, which has been generously funded by the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, distributes grants ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 to support innovative, collaborative civic education projects that prepare North Carolina&squo;s youth for active, responsible citizenship.

For more information on the Consortium&squo;s Small Grants program, contact Christie Hinson at hinson@sog.unc.edu.