BRYAN, Texas — Kemp Carver Elementary School received a $10,000 donation from Optimum through DonorsChoose on Wednesday morning to help fund classroom projects, benefitting students and teachers.
DonorsChoose is a national education nonprofit Optimum partners with to financially assist with educational tools, technologies, and resources to students and teachers.
This is the first time Kemp Carver has received a donation of this magnitude from Optimum.
“I’m super thankful for the opportunity to partner with Optimum and DonorsChoose to provide our students and our teachers with an opportunity to do some learning outside, so we’re going to look to build an outdoor classroom to provide our students with experiences that they may not otherwise get,” said Alison Boggan, principal at Kemp Carver Elementary School.
Boggan says she asked her teachers what the school needed if they had an extra $10,000, and their response was to get students more involved with stem related projects.
“We are also looking to purchase some STEM kits and we have robotics now and so we’re really excited to put that all together to provide experiences for kids,” said Boggan.
Curt Allison with Optimum says the company has partnered with DonorsChoose for the past three years.
He says students at Kemp Carver are the future.
“Anything we can do to encourage students into STEM, into outdoors, science, technology, engineering, and math and sciences of education, we want to do that because we know that they are the future of our business, and these are the people that will fill my shoes and do a much better job than I do,” said Curt Allison, market engagement manager, Optimum.
Boggan looks forward to planning what the outdoor classroom will look like.
“We actually have to wait until the fencing is put up so we can make sure that the kids are secure, that anything we put out there is secure, so we won’t be able to start until that’s done which is summertime,” said Boggan.
“The students here at Kemp Carver and the fact that they’re looking to do this outdoor classroom with some of these funds just really makes us so happy,” said Allison.
Fencing for the outside classroom is expected to go up around June, and Kemp Carver will then map a layout of the new repurposed area.