What can we say… we like to give money away! Especially when the money is supporting a special education program like the one at Truman Elementary in Springfield, Missouri – our winner of the UCT Gives Back AGAIN to Schools video contest.
We are also thrilled to award the 2nd place $5,000 prize to another deserving school – Waldron Learning Center in Coldwater, Michigan. Congratulations to both schools!
All of our finalists have impressive programs and created great videos. We all enjoyed watching them, and we appreciate everything that the dedicated staff at each of the schools do on a daily basis.
Our winning school, Truman Elementary, has some big plans for their $10,000 prize. Not only do they plan to incorporate their “Rolling Café” idea into other schools in the Springfield district, but they also want to create specific spaces in their Special Education rooms to encourage exploration and authentic learning experiences.
Jean Lawson, Special Education Teacher at Truman Elementary, shared with us even more details of their plans. “Our first priority is to offer to schools in the Springfield district who have the most significantly impacted students, an opportunity to start up or enhance their own Rolling Café’s. We would like to pass along what we’ve learned through this process, as well as a learning plan with IEP goals that connect with running the Rolling Café. It costs several hundred dollars to purchase the equipment and then a couple more hundred dollars for start-up products. The generosity of UCT will allow us to multiply our efforts for many other students.”
“This is such a pivotal moment for Truman Elementary since we’ve been in discussions over the past few months about moving forward to meet the needs of the students in our Special Education programs in innovative ways that break the traditional school format, especially for students with autism, who learn best in other ways. This grant money will help us realize our dreams and allow us to immediately begin to implement changes.”
And that’s exactly why we do what we do at UCT… We want to make an impact… We want to implement change… We want to help local communities… We want to make dreams come true.
We are looking forward to visiting Truman Elementary in the next couple of weeks to award their well-deserved prize money and to celebrate with them! Be sure to keep an eye out on our Facebook page for pictures, videos and more!
“We are so grateful for this very generous award. We will be able to do things we were only dreaming of. We are excited for our students and energized as staff to provide the best possible learning opportunities for all of our students.” – Jean Lawson, Special Education Teacher at Truman Elementary.
Here are the videos of our winners:
Truman Elementary
Waldron Learning Center
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