Grinnell College Community Mini-Grant Spotlight: Grinnell Community Early Learning Center and Grinnell-Newburg School District/LINK Grinnell

Dec 8, 2022

Continued Learning — Grinnell Community Early Learning Center

two people at conference — Kathleen Whisenand, curriculum coordinator at the Grinnell Community Early Learning Center, with Becky Bailey at the Conscious Discipline Conference in Florida in summer 2022.

In spring 2022, the Grinnell College Community Mini-Grant Program awarded the Grinnell Community Early Learning Center $2,824 to provide members of their leadership staff with the chance to learn about new techniques and methods of early learning.

The Early Learning Center made use of the funds to pay for conference registrations as part of a collaborative effort with Child Care Aware, Nature Explore, and Conscious Discipline. These experiences educated the staff about current ideas and practices that can enhance the ability of educators to provide a quality early education for their students.

Staff attending these conferences brought back what they had learned to the Early Learning Center to ensure that practices in educating Grinnell’s youth are current and implement the best advances that teaching has to offer. This is unprecedented because the Early Learning Center has not had the opportunity to attend conferences like this before. Conference participants brought cutting-edge ideas back to Grinnell to innovate and improve practices already in place.

Valerie Steinbach, director of the Grinnell Community Early Learning Center, said, “This proposal was intended to help the children and families at the center and the community. With the increased education in nature play, diversity, and social-emotional learning, staff would gain new ideas, skills, and concepts that can then be brought back to the center to implement with children.”

To keep updated about developments, visit the Grinnell Community Early Learning Center their website.

Fighting Food Insecurity — Grinnell-Newburg Community School District

The Grinnell-Newburg Community School District partnered with Lead Inspire Nurture Keep (LINK) Grinnell to apply for a Grinnell College Community Mini-Grant for the purchase of large refrigerators; the groups were awarded $7,500 for this project in spring 2022.

The new refrigerators will serve the needs of many community programs, including the Tiger Pack meal program, the Summer SLICK morning snack program, LINK Grinnell after-school and summer snacks, Mid-Iowa Community Action (MICA), and the Community Giving Garden at Davis Elementary School. Food assistance is provided for over 40 LINK students and 100 Summer SLICK participants each day. The refrigerators ensure that all these students are provided for.

Many of these initiatives are centered around local children facing food insecurity, but other community members will benefit from them, too. Refrigeration is a key element that keeps these programs going; it offers new opportunities that will reach families and community members across Poweshiek and Jasper counties.

closed refrigerator — The new Grinnell-Newburg Community School District refrigerators, which were bought in part with Grinnell College Community Mini-Grant funds.

The new refrigerators provide a range of meal options as part of the Tiger Pack program, which can be expanded through the ability to cold-store fruits and vegetables, giving students and their families healthier options. These sleek new refrigerators are a key part in the fight against hunger in the Grinnell community.

“This summer, our LINK program served an average of 81 kids per day. The SLICK program had an enrollment of 107 kids for the summer. These two programs utilized these refrigerators for snacks of fruits and milk throughout the summer,” remarked Ashley Risting, executive director of LINK Grinnell.