FIRST FYI: Best Buy Children's Foundation Grants

[Rich Wong]

ATTENTION TEAMS: FUND RAISING OPPORTUNITY!!!


Best Buy Children's Foundation Grants

The Best Buy Children's Foundation has announced that it plans to award a total of $3 million in grants to K-12 schools to support the use of technology in teaching. Through a new program called te@ch, all accredited, public and private K-12 schools located within 25 miles of a Best Buy store are eligible to apply. The grants, worth $2,500 each, will be awarded to 1,200 schools to help them enhance or sustain existing technology education programs.

If your school would like to apply for one of these grants to help your FIRST team, please visit the Best Buy Childrens Foundation te@ch site at:

http://communications.bestbuy.com/communityrelations/teach.asp Applications will be accepted until December 31, 2003.

[Yan Wang]

Our town's tiny... I live 3/4 mile away from the mall and Best Buy LOL

Thanks for bringing this grant to everyone's attention. This sounds very relevant.

[J Flex 188]

gah. american grant it seems? hehe. future shop and best buy are owned by the same company up here. oh well.

[rachakate]

1200 grants available! They could become an official sponsor of FIRST and give every team one! What a great opportunity. Thanks for the info Rich!

[BandChick]

This is a great great idea! I'm so glad that people want to support technology.

Good luck to all the teams that apply!

I know that I'm going to fill out the application with our team advisor in hopes we get some funding.

Sara

[Greg Ross]

Originally posted by rachakate
1200 grants available! They could become an official sponsor of FIRST and give every team one! What a great opportunity. Thanks for the info Rich!
Could be. But I guess this isn't restricted to schools with FIRST teams, so the 1,200 grants will probably be diluted by a much larger pool of applicants.

[sanddrag]

This is a point of mine I've been carrying for a while:
See how little money can go such a long ways! For about 5 million dollars, every FIRST team could be registered for one event. Five mill is nothing to a large business or two - especially when it would be used across the nation and around the world. Even city governments and school districts have millions extra laying around in their budgets.

[Cory]

uh no way. Any and every school district in California has absolutely zero extra money, as do all city governments. In fact, if Arnold recalls the gas tax as hes said he will plan to, cities wont even have enough money to pay for the amount of firefighters they need, among other important things. Im sure the same can be said across the nation.

Cory

[IMDWalrus]

This is great. Best Buy is doing a wonderful thing by supporting education and interest in technology.

Hopefully, the grants go to those who will need it the most - like the rookie teams and established teams low on funds. I don't know if we'll get anything, but it's worth it to apply. I know that 818 is low on money at the moment; any help we can get is appreciated.

[Gadget470]

Originally posted by IMDWalrus
This is great. Best Buy is doing a wonderful thing by supporting education and interest in technology.

Hopefully, the grants go to those who will need it the most - like the rookie teams and established teams low on funds. I don't know if we'll get anything, but it's worth it to apply. I know that 818 is low on money at the moment; any help we can get is appreciated.

Personally, I don't think that rookie teams fall into the catagory of "those who will need it most".. unless you mean: "Hopefully, if some of the grants go to some FIRST teams it will go to those who need it most".

As much as I love FIRST, a FIRST team is a privledge to be on. Most schools don't have the technology to compete on an acedemic level. I would like to see the acedemic standard level raised because it can be, than for FIRST teams to get a slightly better year financially.

[BandChick]

Originally posted by gwross
Could be. But I guess this isn't restricted to schools with FIRST teams, so the 1,200 grants will probably be diluted by a much larger pool of applicants.

if you read the "fine print" on the website, it says applications are done on a rolling basis BECAUSE they expect a LOT of applicants.

[dez250]

i want to bring something to all your attentions, that some of you may have yet to notice. This grant is for furthering tech departments in k-12 schools, so its for more then schools with FIRST teams. So dont expect everyone on a first team that applys will recieve a grant. as kamen has said in the past there are around 20,000+ high schools in the usa. So if we count those 20,000 then add all other schools that are not just a "high school", we have well over 50,000 schools in this country. So with 1200 grants at $2500 each, im going to say that there will be more then 1200 applicants. Also if this grant is recieved, it can go towards a team, but they are looking at more of a "source it will go to that any student can access".

Just my 2 cents...

~Mike

[Gadget470]

dez:

while that is a quite valid point, it is worth the 30 minutes to apply. Possibly being paid $5000/hr for filling out an application is worthwhile.

[Tytus Gerrish]

SHURE! tell the world

now the rush is on to send in our App

[dez250]

Originally posted by Gadget470
dez:
while that is a quite valid point, it is worth the 30 minutes to apply. Possibly being paid $5000/hr for filling out an application is worthwhile.

DEFINITELY APPLY!!! i am not saying don't apply, i was just trying to point out to some people that this is open to more then first participants and that they will choose a school who receives a grant on more then "we have a FIRST team".
~Mike

[Gadget470]

Allright Dez, we have pretty much the same opinion, just crossed statements :D

[Joe Matt]

Anybody have any sucess with this? We are trying this out for some money, and feedback will be greatly appreceated. (sp?)