Healthy Eating for Homeless Kids

Alleviating and preventing hunger and homelessness are the mission of the Homeless Coalition. Thanks to a grant from the Suncoast Credit Union Foundation, families in Charlotte County were able to feed their children during difficult times.

Citrus Education Foundation

The Suncoast Credit Union Foundation was proud to partner with the Citrus Education Foundation to help Charlotte County families in need. This funding provided school supplies, coolers, groceries for families unable to leave their homes, hot spots, and other emergent needs.

More than 6,000 school supply care packages were distributed throughout the county at feeding locations and schools. The coolers were used to help distribute more than 700,000 meals to students in Citrus County.

The Guadalupe Center

The vision of the Guadalupe Center is that every child under age five in Immokalee will have access to high-quality early learning. The Suncoast Credit Union Foundation was proud to support the Guadalupe Center’s third early learning campus, the Monaghan Family Campus for Learning.

The campus was renovated to serve 64 Early Childhood Education students, and the Suncoast Credit Union Lobby warmly welcomes students, teachers, families and guests each day as they enter the building ready to learn.

Links2Success

The Suncoast Credit Union Foundation was proud to award a grant to Links2Success which enabled them to host the fifth annual Leadership & Career Conference for DeSoto County Middle School students.

Links2Success offers students an opportunity to participate in hands-on career exploration activities by providing field trips to colleges and technical schools.

During the free program, students are exposed to several careers, including healthcare, banking, STEM, judicial, government, law enforcement, non-profit and agriculture.

Suncoast Credit Union Scholars

The Suncoast Credit Union Foundation awarded $2,000 scholarships to two high school seniors in Dixie County as part of the Suncoast Credit Union Scholars program. We are proud to support public education and help future generations achieve their goals.

Arts4All Florida

We were proud to award a grant to Arts4All Florida to support their artist in residence programs in Gilchrist County. Students create 3D printed models, make cards using graphic design software and design artwork and animated stories using virtual reality software.

The students have even created a small business making and selling 3D printed necklaces for the holidays.

Perfecta Plus Printer

The Suncoast Credit Union Foundation funded the purchase of a Perfecta Plus Printer for students in Glades County. The printer is used to print educational posters for classroom use.

Chromebooks for Students

The Suncoast Credit Union Foundation was proud to offer a grant to North Wauchula Elementary School to shrink the digital divide by giving every student equal access to Chromebooks. During the time of school closures due to COVID-19, these computers helped students participate in distance learning.

Besides providing instruction through Chromebook usage, students were also able to participate in some extracurricular activities, like book clubs and Cool Cat TV morning announcements. More than two hundred students benefited from this opportunity.

Footsteps2Brilliance

This program has been so successful that an additional 6 schools were added. We love to see how many books students read and write thanks to the help of Footsteps2Brilliance.

YMCA Summer Camp

Through funding from the Suncoast Credit Union Foundation, the YMCA of the Suncoast was able to help fill a gap in providing safe, adult-supervised, intentional activities that foster children’s cognitive, social-emotional, and physical development during summer months while their parents work.

In nearly every community the Y serves, the number of families and children far exceeds the capacity of any one provider for services. Full-day summer programs are essential to working parents who rely on the YMCA to provide high quality programs.

Literacy Materials

When students returned to the classroom in August 2020 after being out of school for over 5 months, there were learning gaps for reading. The Suncoast Credit Union Foundation funded reading intervention materials to provide teachers a focused and explicit roadmap for this work.

LEGO League

The Suncoast Credit Union Foundation was proud to sponsor the LEGO League, a HCC STEM outreach project that engages students from 16 counties to participate and inspires them to pursue STEM education and careers.

The program is built around theme-based challenges to engage children ages 9-16 in research, problem solving, coding and engineering. Students emerge more confident, excited and equipped with skills they need in a changing workforce.

Musician Masks

Thanks to funding from the Suncoast Credit Union Foundation, band students in Lee County were able to play music while wearing masks. This funding helped the district buy 3,300 musician masks with an opening that allows the musician to play an instrument while still wearing a face mask while not playing.

Wi-Fi for Students

Through COVID relief funding from Suncoast Credit Union, the Levy County Schools Foundation was able to provide new mobile Wi-Fi devices. These mobile devices helped provide students in areas with limited or non-existent service with internet access. Having access to this equipment provided many opportunities for Levy County students.

Ponchos and Umbrellas for Students

Daughtrey Elementary noticed that during rainy weather, there was an increase in absenteeism because 80% of the students walk to school each day. Through a grant from Suncoast, Daughtrey Elementary was able to purchase rain ponchos and umbrellas to add to their uniform closet to help students stay at school and be successful.

Science Equipment for Students

Experimental work is critical to the learning process. Through a grant from the Suncoast Credit Union Foundation, middle and high school students in Marion County were able to access modern science equipment.
 
The new equipment lets students measure water quality and sole samples and apply data to evaluate changes. This interdisciplinary project will also help develop broader skills like leadership, teamwork and communication.

Mission 14

Funding from Suncoast allowed student from across 5 schools to participate in the Student Spaceflight Experiment. These projects included learning about microgravity, scientific research, experimental design and writing research projects. Additionally students learned history, visual arts, and design standards.

The Student Spaceflight Experiments allowed students to design and propose real science experiments to be conducted by astronauts on the International Space Station. Students designed experiments in diverse fields, including seed germination, physiology and life cycles of microorganisms, cell biology and growth, food studies and studies of micro-aquatic life.

Room of Hope

The Suncoast Credit Union Foundation was proud to provide funding to the Rooms of Hope serving the Tampa Bay region. Rooms of Hope helps local foster children by empowering them to make choices for themselves during a traumatic time in their lives.

Each Room of Hope is filled with emergency necessities displayed like retail stores. Foster children can come shop at no charge. With a new duffel bag (Bag of Hope), they can select several shirts; pairs of pants/ shorts; pajamas; new socks and shoes; new undergarments; blanket/soft toy; hygiene items; and/or school supplies. The Room of Hope gives children belongings to call their own.

Book Vending Machine

Many of Eagle Lake Elementary students come from disadvantaged backgrounds. To help children from households with limited resources, the Suncoast Credit Union Foundation funded a book vending machine for the school.

Books in the home are strongly linked to academic achievement. Providing the opportunity for a child to own a book and take it home is central to improved reading outcomes at our school. The idea of the vending machine is to get the children excited about owning their own book and to encourage reading in and out of school.

Big Dig

With the support of the Suncoast Credit Union, the Education Foundation of Sarasota County was able to provide an immersive project to Toledo Blade Elementary School.

Students arrived at school to discover an archaeological dig site, complete with bones, fossils, and rubble that hinted at previous times and inhabitants. The week-long “Big Dig” immersive scenario was created to spark students’ natural curiosity and connect to other disciplines such as language, culture, art and history.

Art in the Capitol

Suncoast Credit Union Foundation sponsored materials for middle students across the district to participate in a prestigious Florida arts event. Students submitted original pieces of art to the district’s fourth annual Art in the Capitol competition.

The pieces included paintings, drawings, collages, prints, mixed media, computer generated art and photographs. Entries designated as Best School Entry received a plaque and the entry designated as Best of Show will be framed and sent to the Florida capitol to be on display during the legislative session. The top five entries from each school are on display at the Sumter County School Board office.