Mini-Grant Program

Congratulations to our 2025-26 Grant Recipients!

Supporting Educators.
Impacting Students.

The Cambrian Educational Foundation is proud to announce $10,015 in Mini-Grant funding awarded to educators across the district. This year’s grants support hands-on STEM learning, early literacy, project-based learning, music and arts enrichment, and social-emotional wellness.

To maximize impact, several projects received partial funding, allowing CEF to support more classrooms and students. An additional alternate project was also identified should funds become available.

Thank you to our teachers for their creativity and commitment to enriching student learning!

Overview

  • Applications Received: 21

  • Total Funds Requested: $20,962.15

  • Total Recommended Funding: $10,015

  • Funding Approach:

    • Full funding for most recommended projects

    • Partial funding for select projects to support core components that align with CEF mission and Mini-Grant guidelines

    • Approved an additional $15 to fund projects over the pre-approved $10,000.

    • One project identified as an alternate, to be funded if awarded funds are declined or returned

Funding Initiatives

  • Project-Based Learning (PBL) and interdisciplinary instruction

  • Early literacy and foundational skills

  • STEM, robotics, and hands-on learning

  • Music and arts enrichment

  • Social-emotional learning and student wellness

2025-26 Grant Recipients

  • Chau Chieng

    Steindorf, 8th Grade

    Dystopian & Bill of Rights PBL
    Eighth-grade students will explore democratic freedoms and civic engagement through an interdisciplinary project connecting literature and constitutional studies. Enhanced staging and presentation equipment will elevate student work and create a school-wide showcase experience.

  • Jolene Voss

    Fammatre, Maker Space

    Request for 2 CHOMPSAWS
    This award will expand the maker space by adding safe cutting tools (CHOMPSAWS) so that more TK–5 students can participate in engineering and creative design projects.

  • Tina Wheeler

    Fammatre, 5th Grade

    2026 Student Podcast Project
    Students will produce original podcasts that boost literacy, technology, collaboration, and communication skills. The grant provides equipment and tools that support scripting, recording, editing, and publishing, merging technology with language arts.

  • Daisy Gonzalez

    Sartorette, Kindergarten

    Kindergarten PBL + Learning Resources (Partial Award)
    This partial award funds Coding Mice to introduce kindergarten students to early coding concepts through hands-on, play-based learning. Students build foundational skills in sequencing, logic, problem-solving, and creativity while exploring cause-and-effect in an engaging, developmentally appropriate way.

  • Catherine Lorigan & Keenan Lewis

    Ida Price Middle School, Music Department

    Music Department Trip
    This grant funds clinic fees for a music department trip, providing participating student musicians with expert instruction, feedback, and enrichment beyond the classroom. The experience supports skill development, performance confidence, and musical growth for the full group of students involved.

  • Kendall Tavokal

    Sartorette, Transitional Kindergarten

    Duplo Designs
    Partial funding supports core Duplo materials for a TK kelp forest project, allowing students to build and explain animals and habitats through hands-on, play-based learning that strengthens early science, language, and problem-solving skills.

  • Savannah O’Hara

    Bagby, Licensed School Psychologist

    Schoolwide Toolkit for Building Emotional Readiness
    This toolkit provides social-emotional learning resources—games, visual supports, and sensory tools—designed to help students develop self-awareness, emotional regulation, and coping strategies.

  • Liz Parker

    Fammatre, 3rd Grade

    Hands-On STEM — Project Lead the Way
    Fifth-grade students will implement Project Lead the Way science modules that build deep, hands-on understanding of properties of matter, patterns in the universe, and engineering design. Vex Robotics kits will support cross-subject collaboration and prepare learners for state science assessments.

  • Krista Davis

    Steindorf, 3rd Grade

    Building Reading Stamina, Choice & Joy
    Third-grade classrooms will expand their library with diverse, high-interest books to support partner reading, book clubs, and independent reading structures that strengthen comprehension and engagement.

  • Kendall Tavakol & Melissa Zieper

    Sartorette, Transitional Kindergarten

    Alphabet & Phonological Literacy Manipulative Library
    TK students will benefit from hands-on literacy manipulatives that build foundational alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, and print understanding through play-based exploration.

  • Michele Brister

    Steindorf, Counselor

    Flexible Wellness Space Enhancement (Partial Award)
    This partial award supports core social-emotional learning tools and materials for a student wellness space, providing calming resources such as sensory tools, art materials, and quiet activities. These enhancements help create a more welcoming and flexible environment where students can regulate emotions, decompress, and engage in positive, low-stimulation activities during transitions and unstructured times.

  • Debbie Clima

    Fammatre, 2nd Grade

    Integrating Coding Into Our Learning
    Students will use Sphero robots to explore coding, storytelling, and problem-solving in interdisciplinary activities that connect technology with science, math, and language arts.

  • Stacey Patrick

    Fammatre, Transitional Kindergarten

    Transitional Kindergarten classrooms will implement felt-story materials and interactive storytelling to strengthen oral language, comprehension, and early literacy skills through multi-sensory narrative experiences.

  • ALTERNATE

     • To be funded if an award recipient no longer requires their grant funds.

    Krista Davis & Katie Ericson, Steindorf 3rd Grade

    Native Plant Garden PBL
    Students will explore California native ecosystems and Indigenous land stewardship before designing a school native plant garden.

Thank you to 2025-26 Mini-Grant Committee.

Thank you to our teachers for their creativity and commitment to enriching student learning!

Resources

  • Mini-Grant Program Overview

    This is a full detailed list of the 2025 program eligibility, application, and review criteria.

    Click here

  • Application Template

    Applciations must be submitted online. This template is provided to allow individuals and teams to prepare and collaborate on their application before submission.

    Click here

Applications are due January 4, 2025

All applications must be formally submitted at the link below.
For questions or concerns, please email minigrants@cambrianef.org.

Submit your application here

Mini-Grant Program Details

  • Enhancing Core Education: Enhancement of existing curriculum, Project Based Learning.

    Enhancing Enrichment: After-School or Lunch Program/Club, Visual or Performing Arts,

    Workshops.

    Promoting Community: Enhancing School Culture: Family and/or Student Engagement,

    Community Building, Global Awareness, Culture of care and respect, Inclusion.

    Enhancing Health and Wellness: Social Emotional Learning (SEL), Physical Health

    Promotion, Student Safety

    Promoting Creativity and Innovation: STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math),

    Creative learning options or labs, Competitions, Environmental conservation.

  • Due to regulations, these are examples of projects that will NOT be funded:

    ● Transportation fees of any kind

    ● Conducting book studies or attending conferences

    ● Staying after school for office hours or after school club

    ● Performing adjunct duties such as coaching

  • You must be a current certificated staff in the Cambrian School District and your activity/project must be completed during the school calendar year 2025-26.

  • • Submit your application by e-mail to minigrants@cambrianef.org or via District mail to

    the Cambrian Educational Foundation - Mini Grants c/o Superintendent’s Office.

    • The application deadline is January 4th, 2026 by 5:00 p.m.

    • Applications will be reviewed during a Mini-Grant Committee meeting, to be held in

    early January 2026. The recommendation will be submitted to the CEF Board for final

    approval on January 30th. You will be notified within two days of the meeting of the

    status of your application.

    • Funding will be made available within 2 weeks of approval of the grant application.

    • Recipients are required to publicly credit CEF for their funding and must provide a brief

    report upon completion.

  • ● $10,000 in total funding for Cambrian in 2025-2026 school year

    ● Funding for a single grant can be up to a maximum of $1,000.

    ● May request supplies, materials, and fees specific to the grant program/project.

    ● May request stipends if the project requires considerable instructional time or training.

  • Grants will be issued on a competitive basis. A committee of parents (“Mini Grant Committee”) will review all applications and decide in January 2026 which projects will receive the mini grants. If the total sum of funding requested by the grant applicants exceeds the funding available, applications with the highest points will be prioritized. In review of submissions when limited funding is available CEF may request a reduction in scope.