Faces, Places & Voices of Poudre Valley REA: Engineering Brightness, PVREA Empower Grant Recipient

At Severance Middle School, sixth-grade teacher Kathy and her students bring together creativity, applied science, and passion for learning in their after-school club, Engineering Brightness.

On Tuesdays, the club gets togethers for a project that is equal parts education and philanthropy. Born in part of Kathy’s personal passion and fulfilled by the sixth graders own hands, Engineering Brightness is providing light in the darkness for other students across the globe.

Under Kathy’s guidance, students are building solar lanterns to donate to a community in Africa that does not have consistent access to electricity. The lanterns will provide much needed light enabling eighth-grade students to better prepare for rigorous exams.

PVREA provides Empower Grants to help fund classroom projects like Kathy’s that focus on science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. Fourteen projects were selected this year, and each received up to $2,000 to go towards their project. For more information about Empower Grants or to learn when next year’s applications become available, go to www.pvrea.coop/empower-grants.

Watch this story on YouTube: Learning Lanterns: An Empower Grant Story