NEF’s Small Grants is Friday, October 15

Students at Jackson Street School worked with anti-racist educator Tiffany Jewell last year, as part of the school’s Empowering Youth: How to Be an Anti-Racist grant, funded by NEF. At the end of the year, they displayed the work they created as part of an art/identity project associated with the grant.

Empowering Youth: Working to be Anti-Racist
$2905
Bridge Street School
Students and educators in all grades will work with Tiffany Jewell, a Black biracial writer and anti-racist educator and consultant, to engage in anti-racist dialogue, learning, and practice. Topics explored include: Waking Up: Understanding and Growing Into Our Identities; Going Beyond the Dictionary: Understanding Racism; The History We Carry With Us; Choosing Your Path: Taking Action, Responding to Racism; What We’re Fighting For.
Funds consultant, books and copying

Empowering Youth: How to Be Anti-Racist (Year 2)
$3000
Jackson Street School
Students and educators in all grades will continue to work with Tiffany Jewell, a Black biracial writer and anti-racist educator and consultant, to engage in anti-racist dialogue, learning, and practice.
Funds consultant, books and copying

Building Resilience in NPS: Onward Book Group
$1000
All Northampton schools
This book group, open to any NPS educator, will meet for 1.5 hours 1-2 times per month for 6 months starting fall 2021. The group will use the book Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators to discuss building resilience as educators and learn and practice mindfulness activities such as meditation, breath work, and/or yoga poses.
Funds staff time and books

Underpass and Kids Need Art
$4975
JFK Middle School/Northampton High School
In collaboration with JFK Art Teachers Michelle Mallory, Emma Mendoker, and NHS Art Teacher, Louise Martindell, local artist Kim Carlino will conduct at least two workshops at each school for the teachers and any interested students to learn about the expression of identity through art and color and to design a public art project on a sidewalk wall located on the Bridge St. (Rt. 9) underpass below Rt. 91 near the new roundabout intersection of Bridge St. and Damon Rd. The team of student artists, led by Kim Carlino, would then transfer and paint the design on the wall
Funds staff time, consultant and materials

SASH: Finding Our Voices (Year 3)
$4782
JFK Middle School/Northampton High School
SASH (Students Against Sexual Harassment) was created by NHS students, using the arts to inspire and connect students’ voices on difficult issues facing all children and adolescents. This program provides a structure where high school and younger students can come together to learn from each other. High schoolers can give the younger students a chance to talk about things that they may need advice on, but overall SASH weaves a web of connection and support between students from different schools, different ages, and different developmental stages. SASH is taught through the lens of social-emotional learning and using the tools of communication ranging from music to dance to improv to art to creative writing. At JFK, we will be able to fill in the missing link and build connections across all three school stages: elementary, middle school and high school.
Funds staff time, consultant and materials

Affinity Support Group
$2970
All Northampton schools
NPS as a district and a group of interested staff members is working to launch an affinity group program in our school system. An affinity group is a designated “safe space,” where everyone in that group shares a particular identity. This identity can be based on race, gender, sexual orientation, language, nationality, physical/mental ability, socio-economic class, family structure, religion, etc. Affinity groups can be a place for underrepresented and historically marginalized people in a community to come together to feel less isolated and more connected. It can also be a place where people who receive privilege as a part of a certain group can think together about how to disrupt the status quo. The district will cover staff stipends.
Funds consultants and books

STEM Exposure and Outreach Initiative
$400
All Northampton schools
The purpose of this project is to expose elementary and middle school students in the NPS district to STEM principles and ideas early in their schooling careers in a fun inclusive way. This would be achieved in three ways; labs, projects, and forming connections and mentorships with STEM interested students from NHS. Included will be more outdoor group-based projects, implemented by high school students working again with basic principles of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Coding.
Funds materials