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Swift Foundation announces local grants

Sky-Hi News staff report

Three groups in Grand County have been awarded a total of $6,500 in grant funding through The Bessie Minor Swift Foundation, formed by the owners and founder of Swift Communications, parent company of the Sky-Hi News.

The foundation awards grants to programs that promote literacy, reading and writing skills as well as programs that focus on languages, sciences and interdisciplinary areas. This year, Friends of the Grand County Library and Middle Park High School received $3,000 each.

The grant for the library will purchase 8-15 rechargeable VOX Books — books that talk — for each of five libraries in the Grand County Library District. By modeling how read-along books can be utilized, this program will expand opportunities for children to listen to and read books when adults are not available to read aloud. This program will serve a wide range of children including English language learners and those with learning disabilities.



At Middle Park High School, Rev Robotics and AndyMark parts will help extend robotic capabilities and support participation in competitions against schools with far more resources. Two teams are supported with these grant funds, and the program could be extended to more students next year. Students will work over the summer programming and building robots.

Additionally, West Grand Elementary and Middle School received $500 for books in Spanish and English, along with Spanish-English dictionaries for preschool to be given away at Family Literacy Night, which encourages families to read with their children.



Since 2008, more than $700,000 has been awarded to deserving organizations in the communities where Swift Communications conducts business, including Summit, Eagle, Routt and Grand County, just to name a few.

The deadline for 2020 grant applications was Feb. 15 and more than 83 applications were received. This year, over $86,000 has been awarded to 39 organizations from five states.

The Bessie Minor Swift Foundation thanks the many groups that took the time and energy to apply and encourages those that were not selected to submit applications in the future. Applications will be accepted again starting Jan. 1, 2021 with a deadline of Feb. 15, 2021. For more, http://www.bessieminorswift.org.

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