Above and Beyond: Additional Teachers Receive Place-Based Grants in RSC Hubs

Additional educators are given funding for Place-Based Education projects in RSC’s Iowa, North Dakota, and Pacific Northwest Regional Hubs.

January 16, 2025 |
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Recently, Rural Schools Collaborative announced our 2025 Grants in Place Fellows. These awardees, teachers representing each of RSC’s Regional Hubs, form a cohort of educators who will utilize the grant to engage their students in unique, Place-Based Education projects. The selection committee which chooses which projects to fund from each region has the unenviable task of selecting just one recipient per region, despite the incredible quality of applicants they receive. This year, several local organizations have committed to funding additional runner-up projects within their service area, further deepening the impact of this program and the strengthening important local relationships on the ground between RSC’s partners and schools.


In the spring of 2025, additional funding will support projects and educators in RSC’s Pacific Northwest Regional Hub, Iowa Hub, and North Dakota Hub. Contributing support are the Roundhouse Foundation (OR), the Iowa-based Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque (CFGD), and North Dakota Small and Organized Schools (NDSOS). We are deeply grateful for each of these organizations emphasizing the importance of Place-Based Education in connecting students with their rural communities. RSC is delighted to share a bit more about these additional projects, which are featured below.

“We are so grateful to these local funding partners, who are amplifying the impact of the Grants in Place program far beyond what we can do on our own. Every single dollar makes a difference for these rural students, educators, and communities.”

Iowa

RSC’s Iowa Regional Hub is anchored by the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque, who is supporting an additional project for the second time. This year, they awarded an additional Place-Based Education grant to Dawn Mausser, of Beckman Catholic High School in Dyersville, Iowa.

Dawn Mausser - Dyersville, IA

Dawn plans to use the $1,000 grant to further develop and grow the culinary program at Beckman, building on a goal of the Beckman Catholic Agricultural department to increase STEAM-based agricultural education through inquiry-based learning. They currently have a greenhouse, but limited capabilities for cooking and connecting food lessons to other programs due to lack of working stove tops and sinks. With this support, Dawn will purchase new equipment, ensuring that students can learn proper preparation, storage, and culinary skills in the classroom, with the hope that they will feel more engaged in cooking at home and spending additional time with their families in the kitchen. New equipment will also enable connections between the meat-sciences program at Beckman, and open up opportunities for Beckman to offer cooking classes to the local Dyersville community.

North Dakota

In North Dakota, additional grant funding is provided by North Dakota Small and Organized Schools (NDSOS), who lead RSC’s Hub in North Dakota, in collaboration with Dr. Steven Johnson, a longtime educator and rural education advocate. This year, NDSOS will support Stacie Stecker, a 2021 Grants in Place Awardee who teaches at Belfield HS in Belfield, ND.

Stacie Stecker - Belfield, ND

Stacie hopes to utilize this grant to further expand an existing student-care program run by the school’s staff and National Honors Society students, a program that she oversees. Her students first organized the “Take Care of Yourself” (TCOY) drive to help deliver personal hygiene products to the underserved students at the school a few years ago, and now want to grow their reach after seeing positive early impacts. Previously they partnered with local businesses to gather donations for the supplies of items like shampoo, deodorant, and dental care products, and gave all students a bag to take home to avoid students feeling ashamed or isolated in collecting the products. This met a need that the students identified, and they continue to explore the connections between hygiene, learning, and community relationships.

Now, with the grant from NDSOS, the students will be expanding their year-round supplies to further develop a free “store” where students can replenish their hygiene products at any time, and add a second delivery of the take-home bags as well. Students will also be identifying more ways to share this effort with the local community, continuing to bring businesses and other groups into the project. Additionally, they hope to recruit more students beyond the National Honors Society to join and continue to grow the impact of TCOY. With the generous support of NDSOS, that will be possible in 2025.

Pacific Northwest

In RSC’s Pacific Northwest Hub, the Oregon-based Roundhouse Foundation has supported the funding of three additional projects this spring. The Roundhouse Foundation specializes in programs that connect communities and inspire innovation, making Place-Based Education projects a natural extension of their grantmaking.

Julia Wright - Burnt River, OR

Julia Wright, of Burnt River, OR, teaches math, science, physical education, and serves as librarian. Her project centers around a student-driven initiative to design and build a 60'x25' outdoor space between the high school’s greenhouse and weight room. Drawing upon students’ ideas and creativity, feedback from the community, and student-led construction, the goal is to make the school weight room an inviting space for community members and to add a relaxing third space for people to spend time outdoors. The design and building process will involve utilizing local materials and will feature place-based design, further enhancing links between students and their local area. Additionally, the project will feature cross-curricular applications of math, science, and creative problem solving.

Michele Engle - Monument, OR

Southeast of Eastern Oregon’s campus in La Grande, Eastern Oregon University alum Michele Engle has been teaching in the Monument school district for over 30 years. Michele will use the Grants in Place Runner-Up Award funds to support Monument High School's community service project, "A Monument for Our Monument." The student-driven project includes designing and building a new town name sign to replace the aging wooden sign, incorporating a QR code that shares local history, stories, and photos, and more. This place-based initiative fosters pride, teamwork, and leadership while beautifying the town and preserving its heritage. The project engages students in hands-on learning and strengthens community ties through collaborative fundraising efforts.

Tracey Sklenar - Madras, OR

Tracey Sklenar, a school counselor at Buff Elementary School in Madras, Oregon, has always touted the value of gardening to empower people to connect to nature and each other. Alongside 5th grade teacher Melanie Binder, Tracey and her students will utilize the grant to continue to grow their gardening operations at school, which have so far featured a greenhouse and take-home seed packers for students each spring. Now, each student will get a raised-bed to themselves, and will share in the work of planting, watering, and tending their plots. High school students in environmental studies class will utilize the garden to teach lessons of stewardship to the elementary students, and the welding students at Central Oregon Community College welding program will make a garden sign for the school. “It is my hope to have our garden and the lessons learned there remain for years to come” reflects Tracey.

All told, because of the support from the Roundhouse Foundation, The Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque, and North Dakota Small and Organized Schools, these five projects that otherwise would not have been possible are taking flight. An additional total of $10,000 will support these rural educators to lead their Place-Based Education projects, providing dozens of personal care products in North Dakota, access to fresh food and meaningful time spent outside in Oregon, and the ripple effect of students and communities learning and working together to sustain and improve their rural places and communities.

Local philanthropy makes a significant difference in the lives of the students and their families, just as teachers like those covered above do every day. Follow along to see how these projects, along with those of the 2025 Grants in Place Awardees, grow throughout the year.

Special thank you to Erin Borla and the Roundhouse Foundation team, Josie Manternach and RSC Board Member Nancy Van Milligen of Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque, and Mike Heilman of North Dakota Small Organized Schools and Steve Johnson for his longtime support of RSC.

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