2025 TEACH Grants Program Opens
JANUARY 2024 — Marion Community Foundation’s TEACH Grants Program is accepting 2025 applications January 30-February 28.
Marion Community Foundation’s successful TEACH Grants Program, started in 2020, is an acronym for “Teaching, Educating And Classroom Help” and awards grants to support local teachers. The grants are designed to encourage teachers, or small teams of classroom teachers, to develop programs, projects, events, or lessons for kindergarten through 12th grade that are “interesting, innovative, stimulating, and impactful” for students. Grants are intended to fund classroom programs not supported by regular school budgets.
On the Foundation’s website, teachers can find the 2025 application under the Grants tab, on the Apply for a Grant page. Any public or private school teacher who instructs children kindergarten through high school in Marion and Morrow counties (Ohio) is eligible to apply.
“Classroom teachers have great ideas and creative solutions to meet their students’ needs,” said Cheryl Wickersham of Marion Community Foundation. “The TEACH Grant program can help teachers launch innovative and motivational ideas that may go unfunded because of a school’s tight budget.”
Over the past five years, the program has awarded grants for projects as diverse as the purchase of multicultural literature to language translation equipment to a drum set. TEACH Grants are made possible by funding from the Pillar Credit Union Teachers Fund, Brown Family Teachers Fund, Marion Education Fund, Pillar Credit Union Morrow County Teach Fund, River Valley Teachers Fund, and Ray & Charlotte Baldauf Fund.
“The Board of Pillar Credit Union was instrumental in starting the TEACH Grants Program by providing the financial support,” said Julie Prettyman, president and CEO of Marion Community Foundation. “As the concept has caught on, other donors created additional funds, like the Marion Education Foundation Fund, to support specific schools. This is our way to affirm the value of our local educators and their creative ideas.”
According to Wickersham, the TEACH Grants program can make awards of up to $2,500 in Marion County and $500 in Morrow County. The decisions on how much and to whom to award grants will be made by a volunteer committee of Marion Community Foundation and its Board of Directors.
Applications for the 2025 TEACH Grants program are available online and are due by February 28 at 11:59pm. Awards will be announced in May for the 2025-26 academic year. Updates will be available on the Foundation’s social media channels—Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Additional information is available by contacting cherylwickersham@marioncommunityfoundation.org or calling 740-387-9704. Marion Community Foundation is located at 504 S. State Street. Its offices are open weekdays 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
