Meet our 2021 Community Builder Winners
There are many incredible endeavors happening in support of local students. As part of the 2021 OnPoint Prize campaign, we are pleased to recognize five schools as Community Builder award recipients.
Community Builder
Congratulations to our 2021 winners!
Congratulations to Holy Family Catholic School for being selected by community votes as our $5,000 school winner.
Holy Family Catholic School
District: Archdiocese of Portland | Project/Program Name: Celebration of International Diversity
Holy Family Catholic School seeks to supports faculty, students, families and the greater parish in exploring prejudices, racial diversity and solutions that can bring about a more equitable and just community.
Led by the Racial Equity Committee, Holy Family Catholic School’s diversity equity and inclusion project will naturally foster a safe learning environment and sense of belonging. In celebration of the diversity of cultures, religions, languages and races both in and out of the school community, the school will offer guest speakers or authors from different cultures, a social justice book club for families, students and faculty, cooking classes and art projects. Holy Family Catholic School’s social justice activities will culminate in its annual International Fair in May.
The school would use the Community Builder funds to engage speakers, provide books for the book club, purchase food for cooking classes and purchase supplies for art projects.
Congratulations to our $2,000 Community Builder award winners.
Awbrey Park Elementary School
District: Eugene District 4J | Project/Program Name: Conscious Discipline
Awbrey Park Elementary School’s Conscious Discipline Program is an evidence-based, trauma-informed approach to supporting teachers’ and students’ social and emotional needs in the classroom. The program provides various behavior management strategies and classroom structures that teachers can use to turn everyday situations into learning opportunities. Conscious Discipline meets CASEL’s SELect Program designation—the highest designation for evidence-based programs—in the CASEL Guide to Effective Social and Emotional Learning Programs. This designation indicates that Conscious Discipline can play a central role in a school’s approach to promoting students’ social and emotional learning.
The Eugene School District is allotting funds for Conscious Discipline classroom materials and training for approximately 30 Title One kindergarten teachers in June 2021. With the additional Community Builder funds, the training at Awbrey Park would also include teachers and students in first and fifth grades.
Cheldelin Middle School
District: Corvallis School District | Project/Program Name: Fire and Food Courtyard
Cheldelin Middle School believes that life’s strongest connections form over food and fire. To create a unique learning experience for students that links scientific measurement, mathematical construction principles and art creation, Cheldelin Middle School seeks to build an outdoor space equipped with a wood-fired kiln. Built above the kiln’s firebox will be a bread oven. Through the power of fire and food, Cheldelin’s outdoor space will spark cross-curricular learning, create lasting positive memories, foster student pride and create a new recreational activity for the community.
Cheldelin Middle School would use the Community Builder funds to purchase a metal shed roof, the first item needed to begin the project.
Lyle Elementary School
District: Dallas School District | Project/Program Name: Recess for All
The Recess for All Project seeks to redesign Lyle Elementary School’s recess to better serve its students. Lyle Elementary School strives to go beyond the typical recess activities and make recess a time for all students to engage in activities that will benefit their physical and mental health and prepare them to return to the classroom ready to learn.
Recess for All will diversify recess activities by creating spaces for group and individual play, add new activities for different levels of play, and define spaces so students can easily identify which area they would like to be in during their recess time.
Recess for All will benefit not only Lyle students but also the community at large. Located near downtown, the school is next to the Lyle Sports Complex and Dallas City Park, a popular area for many in the Dallas community. Because school grounds are open to the public outside of school hours, children of all ages will utilize the improved recess area.
Lyle would use the Community Builder funds to purchase new small group and individual activity stations, signage, barriers to better divide up the recess area, and a storage structure to help house recess materials.
Vern Patrick Elementary School
District: Redmond School District | Project/Program Name: StoryWalk® at Vern Patrick Elementary School
A StoryWalk® is a book that has been dismantled, laminated and presented page by page on a trail, bike path, walkway, park, or other outdoor space to promote reading and physical activity. StoryWalks® was created by Anne Ferguson of Montpelier, VT and developed in collaboration with the Vermont Bicycle & Pedestrian Coalition and the Kellogg Hubbard Library. Presently, Vern Patrick is implementing a StoryWalk® on its campus with a homemade set built from metal stakes and yard signs on loan from the Deschutes County Library. On “Wacky Wednesdays,” students are treated to literary works and movement on the StoryWalk® at PE time.
As an “exceptional sensory break,” Vern Patrick’s StoryWalk® resonates with students regardless of age, learning style and reading ability. Students effortlessly spark discussions in the new learning environment outside of the classroom that educators say flow naturally and endlessly.
Vern Patrick would use the Community Builder Award to install a permanent StoryWalk® along the track for the school community to enjoy.
About the OnPoint Community Builder award
The goal of the Community Builder award is to provide funding for schools to complete a project that is enriching to the school, students and faculty. The award provides four schools with a $2,000 prize, while one lucky school, determined by online community votes, receives a $5,000 prize. In considering which applications will be selected as finalists, the following criteria is considered:
Creativity and Community
Will the project inspire creativity and foster community?
Broad Segment
Will the project reach a broad segment of the school community?
Matching Cost
Can the project be completed with the $2,000 or $5,000 Community Builder award, and if not, what is the plan to raise any outstanding funds needed?
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
How does this project incorporate diversity, equity and inclusion?
Who Is Eligible?
OnPoint accepts project applications for the Community Builder awards from public, private or charter K-12 schools in the counties of Benton, Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Coos, Crook, Curry, Deschutes, Douglas, Gilliam, Hood River, Jackson, Jefferson, Josephine, Klamath, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Marion, Morrow, Multnomah, Polk, Sherman, Tillamook, Wasco, Washington, Wheeler, and Yamhill counties in Oregon, and Clark and Skamania counties in Washington.
