Fund-A-Need

Social and emotional learning (sel) Projects

My students enjoy working on arts and crafts as a way for them to work together as a community as well as work on coping skills for stress. These projects are so much fun but can be costly. I have so many ideas for the holidays coming up and it would be nice if they could make gifts for their families.

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$500

Christina Stevens 

SEL

Classroom set of stress balls.

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$35

Josh Kalinowski

Friendsgiving

Friendsgiving builds school community, deepens relationships, teaches life skills & provides a genuine opportunity that some students may not otherwise have. Student voice is essential; they are part of the entire process. They plan the menu (traditional & nontraditional items), design invites & place cards, choose table settings & decorations, budget & purchase, cook & serve, & enjoy the food! It ends with cleaning & taking food to share with those at home. There is a month-long focus on gratitude, executive functioning skills, & social skills. All students at Blackhawk are considered “At Risk”. Please help us continue this amazing opportunity!

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$1000

Bonnie Osborne

Little Minds at Work Science of Reading Essentials Toolkit

These tool kits support reading intervention curriculum and would keep the students actively engaged. This toolkit helps teachers introduce hands-on routines to their phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and vocabulary instruction. Color-coded materials help students practice and master decoding skills.

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$149.99

3D Pens and filament for STEM

3D Pens and filament for STEM.

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$330

Drama Club

The Goodwin Elementary Drama Club will give students in grades 3, 4, & 5 an opportunity to participate in supervised creative dramatic activities including a final production in April at Herget Middle School. Students will be exposed to different aspects of theater including impromptu skits, vocal music, dance, costume design, set design, props and tech crew. The club will work on creative thinking skills, encourage teamwork, and provide students with enriched learning experiences in the area of performing arts.

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Math Games & Counting Collections

Supplying various items for students to count and develop skip counting skills and looking for patterns. Filling need for various math games to focus on problem solving, and math facts.

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$493.92

Guadalupe Ramos

Hall one book

Hall Elementary School has started the tradition of a One Book, One School project. For this project, all students and staff at Hall get a copy of the selected title. We engage in the reading with literacy activities and have a visit from the author. This project has brought our community together and centers us around the love of reading while discovering diverse characters, settings, and genres. Many of the extension activities encourage family connections. Our past titles for One Book have included Lola Levine Is Not Mean/Lola Levine no es mala by Monica Brown, The First Rule of PUNK/La primera regla del PUNK by Celia C. Perez, and Dark Life/Los abisales by Kat Falls

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Morning Baskets

The project is to collect or purchase STEM items for morning baskets. These morning baskets will be used when the students first enter the classroom. These baskets will be great for many reasons. First, I feel that this is so much more useful to 2nd graders than doing their iPad when they first come in. It is better for their brain development to start the day using STEM building items. Secondly, I feel this requires students to work together. When students are working together, they are learning many important skills. They learn how to have dialogue, they are learning important social skills, and they are learning through each other.

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Math tool kits

With the district initiative Math + being added to our schedule, students need math tools quickly and easily accessible. It is a 30 minute time block that allows students in our grade level to get instruction at their ability level. We switch classrooms to accomplish this. It is a short time slot and in order to focus specifically on the skill being taught, students need to have tools easily available. Instead of spending time passing out supplies, it would be really beneficial for students to have their own math tool kit to bring with them to the classroom they travel to.

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Basic Letter Tile Sets

I am requesting funds to be able to purchase Basic Letter Tile kits for my small groups in reading. The kits would allow me to better facilitate phonics instruction with my small groups. The kits are magnetic and allow the students to manipulate and build words using letter tiles. Each student would need their own kit.

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West Aurora Middle School Band Festival

The 8th grade bands from each middle school will prepare and perform three pieces for evaluation by a renowned band clinician. The clinician will then provide a clinic for each band to help improve their playing. This event is scheduled to take place March 11, 2024 at Jefferson Middle School. The 8th grade band from each school will have approximately 45 minutes to perform and receive a clinic. Parents are invited to attend to experience the performance and the clinic!

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Hope D. Wall Graduation

Graduation at Hope Wall needs some updating and support to make it the best for our students. We would like to get some items that would help us to decorate the gym and create an exciting atmosphere for our students to be able to feel pride in.

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Reading Buddies (JMS Student Council)

With our Reading Buddies program, we bring JMS Student Council members to McCleery once per quarter. Our students read to first grade students in two classrooms for each visit, which allows us to visit our "Buddies" twice per year. We purchase books that we bring for these visits. When the visit ends, McCleery students will keep the books to further their reading at school and at home. Each visit requires us to purchase approximately 50 books.

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Jewel E-Sports Club

This is the 3rd year that I have run our after-school E-Sports Club. It has been very popular, with over 40 kids participating throughout each of the past 2 years. Students come to my classroom and play video games with each other. We have 6 different systems set up and the kids have a few games to choose to play. Since we're entering our 3rd year, some of the games we started with need to be replaced with the new versions. Some of our controllers need to be replaced too.

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$250

Andy McCann

EL Newcomer Supplemental Resources

With the influx of English Language Newcomers to our building, I would love to purchase educational games and manipulatives that are literacy-based. It is important for these newcomers to have engaging activities at their level of English proficiency.

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$500

District 129 Middle School Solo and Ensemble Festival

Solo and Ensemble Festival is open to all 7th and 8th grade middle school band students in the district. This is an enrichment opportunity for students to perform as individuals or in small groups. Students perform for an audience of their peers as well as a professional clinician. They receive feedback regarding specific areas for improvement from the professional clinician.

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$1266

Tara McPhedran

SPIRT CAFÉ

In the Self-Contained SPIRIT program housed at Jewel, we have started the "SPIRIT Cafe" in which our students work on their cooking (life) skills to create monthly treats for teachers to purchase at a minimal price. We started this last year and it was very popular and a lot of teachers look forward to receiving monthly treats from our students. Previous purchases of ingredients have been from the money made so our account is currently negative. Cooking items used (mixers, bowls, pans) have been borrowed from the CTE kitchen here at Jewel or brought from our (teachers) homes.

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$500

Gabrielle Lager

MLS (Math Literacy Steam) Family Fun Night

MLS hosts two events a year that promote student and family engagement. There is a fall family fun night Nov 6 and a spring family fun night May 6. Both host a variety of activities from BINGO, color walk, decoration station, estimation station, photo booth, and a creation station for crafts. Family feedback has been that they love the events and would love to continue to attend them each semester. In the past, on average around 150 students and their families have participated.

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$500

Lauren Williams

Author Visit

We plan to host an author visit through Anderson's Books at Schneider. In order to do so, we are required to buy 30 copies of the author's books. Each classroom teacher will receive a copy to read to their class to get students excited about the author visit. We will add a copy to our library collection and raffle off the remaining books to students. We will host the author at school, and the author will present to the entire school during the day in an assembly. This cost will be covered by Anderson's Books. All students at Schneider will be able to learn about the author and their craft, thereby focusing on and celebrating literacy and reading.

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$500

Rorry Bonifas

Shared Literacy-Sensory Items

Our Shared Reading curriculum has built in purposeful play to support literacy skills. We have sensory tables and need items to fill the table to give students practice with their ABC Knowledge. These materials would be shared throughout the year between the 3 kindergarten sections at Schneider.

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$500

Abbie Leverence

Help Hesed House Stay Warm

My ambassadors club would like to make fleece tie blankets to donate to families in need at Hesed House. This project would teach our 4th and 5th grader club members the importance of helping others and build community connections and involvement. Many of our students receive assistance from programs that are offered in our school. The students felt it would be nice to give back in their own way. A blanket in many ways makes a person not only feel warm, but safe too.

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$250

Friday Journal Notebooks

I would like to purchase my students a composition notebook they can use to communicate with caregivers at home. Every Friday, students will write a letter to a caregiver telling them all about what they learned throughout the week, their thoughts, feelings, and anything else they'd like to say. Then, care givers can write back over the weekend responding to the letter. This gives students the opportunity to write authentically, communicate with grownups at home, and gives parents a sneak peek into the life of their child plus a regular writing sample.

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$100

Haylee Kalkman

Adventure Club (Adventure Awaits)

Andrea and I run adventure club at Washington. In the past we have charged students $10 per person to help offset the costs. Some costs include prizes for our pumpkin carving contest, rock climbing at LifeTime, swimming at the Vaughan. We also do other adventures that are free such as taking a hike, riding the Gilman Trail, etc. A lot of the students who do adventure club want to work on risk taking and trying something new.

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$300

Restart Books for Students

We would like to purchase individual copies of the book Restart by Gordon Korman for each of our 80 students. This is the third year we will be reading the book as a whole class and feel that the students having their own copy would be beneficial. We will be able to have the kids annotate directly in the book, a new skill they are learning this year. We also believe having their own copy would to aid in classroom discussion and their commitment to the book. It is also a really great book, and we'd love for our students to have access to it and read again. Some concepts in the book are bullying, poor choices, underdog success, geriatric relationships, relationships with parents.

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$482.40

Quizziz with Student Accounts

I use quizziz to help students study for different things. However, I realized that they have individual teacher accounts where you can added class and student rosters. This then allows students to use this account and practice from home and it tracks their growth. I can then monitor how much time kids are using this as well as their growth. This also allows for Interactive Lessons, Asynchronous Assignments, and Engaging Assessments.

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$280 for entire year

Katie Pool

WMS Spring Musical Production

WMS's Drama Club is requesting funds to cover the cost of the production royalty, base materials, music, and scripts from Music Theatre International. If we are able to receive funds to cover the base materials, we will be able to use the funds we have raised through our own ticket sales and fundraisers to cover the additional expenses required for set materials, props, and costumes. These base materials allow us to choose a show that students are motivated and excited to perform and through our additional financial contributions, we can create a memorable musical experience for our General students and their families.

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Meghan Hill

Senior Farewell Fireworks

Friday, May 17 is our annual Senior Celebration day. We have continued the tradition of bringing everyone together this evening for one last celebration. The fireworks is a great way to bring the graduating class together, along with friends, family and community members!

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Anything Helps!

Student Ambassadors

I would like money to help supplement purchasing of polos for Student Ambassadors. These students volunteer in the community and I would like to provide them with their polo, as a token of appreciation.

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$250

Link Leader Team building Field trip

Link Leaders are responsible for assisting with Freshman Orientation. They also work to mentor freshman throughout the year. I'm seeking a donation to assist with the cost of a team building field trip in the spring to Starved Rock.

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$1000

Erica Kegarise

Young Hearts for Life

* To offer FREE ECGs to all students (not just athletes) to detect conditions which may cause Sudden Cardiac Death.
* To educate the community about Sudden Cardiac Death and how it can be prevented.
* To help schools/trainers prepare an Emergency Action Plan to effectively manage cardiac emergencies.
* To provide families who have lost a child or sibling with support through interaction with other families who have faced the same unimaginable loss.

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Fox river and waubonsee creek water monitoring

The Advanced Topics class is requesting this grant in conjunction with AP Environmental Science. Annually we do field research on water quality. We have collaborated with Aurora University, Fox Metro, and Friends of the Fox. The field trip involves testing the biological, physical, and chemical aspects of water. Students get into the water to conduct this research, hence our need for chest waders. We have used waders from Aurora University, but they will not be stocking these, due to the end of grant funding. We would like to create our own supply of resources. This experience has a profound impact on our students; who often lack opportunities to engage with nature in these ways.

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Adventure Physical Education, Outdoor Cooking

We have recently added an Outdoor Cooking unit to our Adventure Physical Education course. In an attempt to build on the opportunities for our students there are some cooking items that we would like to be able to purchase to help build our curriculum. The students are learning how to build and start their own camp fires as well as planning and cooking their own meals in the outdoor setting.

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Too Good Ambassadors + Gotta Be Vape Free

I had some t-shirts printed last spring with an image created by the student who won first place in our 1st annual Gotta Be Vape Free contest. I'd like to distribute t-shirts to the students who have volunteered for our Too Good Ambassador program, where we go into middle school Health classes to support the Too Good for Drugs curriculum.

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Anxiety Packs/Mental Health Awareness Fest

Anxiety Packs/Mental Health Awareness Fest.

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Signs of Suicide Program

I'd like to purchase "You Matter" t-shirts designed by the Health teachers to distribute to House personnel, including Security, OPs and Admin. to wear when we administer the Signs of Suicide Program in 9th grade Health classes each semester at WAHS.

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Intramurals Promotion

Our intramural program connects students from all grade levels and abilities at West Aurora high school. Our program allows students who are not normally involved to have a chance to participate in low level sports with a chance to build relationships and a sense of community within our school. Our goal with the A+ Foundation Fund-A-Need money would be to provide students with items that will continue to promote that sense of belonging and community that will translate to more involvement across the school and a rise in academics. These items might include shirts, water bottles, and other items that students can use during the program but also spread the word and advertise for the program.

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Todd Gingerich

Davidson Dollars

Davidson Dollars is a classroom budget system. Students earn and spend money based on: classroom rules expectations, in school job paychecks and bills they receive (phone bills, water bills, gas bills etc.) They fill out a daily/weekly budget form to represent a bank account. The students are able to purchase items from an in-class store. The students have to decide if they want to purchase less expensive items or save their money to make a more expensive purchase. Some of the items sold in the store are: pencils, erasers, stickers, hand sanitizer, hand lotion, pins, reusable water bottles and fidgets.

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Cari Davidson

Self Contained ed 9–12 program social emotional essentials

The self-contained program for students with emotional disabilities is seeking funds to support our students' social emotional needs. Our students require differentiated approaches to instruction due to social emotional dysregulation and needs. These funds will be put towards purchasing items essential to our students' well-being. Funds will be used to purchase personal hygiene products for those in need, calming supports for students who need calming/sensory tools during class, backpacks and reusable water bottles, classroom sets of earbuds for students who require music as a calming tool, and fidget tools and other sensory items.

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Megan Rothery

STAR Incentive Cart

We use "Starbucks" for our kids in STAR, as a way to reward behaviors and effort, and to help motivate our students. The cart has items the students can purchase with their "Starbucks." Items include: snacks, candy, chips, west merchandise, jibbetz for crocs, stickers, fidgets. I have been stocking the cart out of my pocket up until now. This has been an incredible motivator for our students in both their in-person classes, as well as in their Ingenuity classes. These are kids who before they were in STAR were so credit deficient, that graduation was not even a hope for them. They are coming a long way, and their success is up to them.

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Catherine VanHooser

Design and Install Virtual Enterprises Trade Show Booth

VE is a capstone class that allows students to put into practice the skills that they learned in previous business classes. The class connects students who are creating their own virtual businesses in classrooms across the country. They are also able to network with other students at in-person trade shows, which are designed to resemble an actual industry trade show as closely as possible. Each business (class) designs, installs, and operates a booth to show off their business and generate virtual sales. This creates an experience impossible to duplicate in a classroom.

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Joe Billquist

West Aurora versus Hope Wall Basketball game

Each year, students from Hope Wall and West Aurora come together for an adapted PE basketball competition. Not all our students want to play in the game but still want to participate in the experience. Hope Wall brings cheerleaders and dancers that have separate uniforms from the basketball jerseys and we want to create the same opportunities for our students. In doing so, we need uniforms, pom-poms and a new West Aurora banner. This year, the athletes are getting matching jerseys and we are looking to provide the same for the cheerleaders & dancers. We want the dancers to pump up our athletes & the crowd! The cheer uniforms, pom-poms & signage will be reused every year.

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Charlotte Fisher