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Grants and Scholarships » Grant Programs

Grant Programs

The Anderson Education Foundation (AEF) is pleased to offer two grant programs each school year for Anderson Community Schools (ACS) teachers and staff to apply for. Below is information for the 2025-2026 school year:
 
Classroom Grant Program
This program funds project-based learning grant proposals for up to $1,000. Grants are due on October 24, 2025. Grant recipients will be notified on or before November 22, 2025.
 
Click here to access the application.
 
As part of the Classroom Grant Program, there are three scholarships that have been created to honor past Anderson Community Schools' students and educators:
  • Hamer (Science) - up to $1,000 annually - Stephen Hamer, an ’01 grad of Highland High School, was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma in his sophomore year of high school. Throughout his high school years, he had a burning interest in the sciences and would have gone on to pursue medicine, if he had lived. Unfortunately, Stephen died a week before he was to start college but not before expressing an interest in establishing a grant with the Anderson Education Foundation that would fund science-based projects.
  • McVicker (Reading) - up to $1,000 annually - Lisa McVicker was a lifelong educator, who taught literature and poetry to many children in the Anderson School system. She began her career in Anderson teaching second grade at Edgewood Elementary School in 1963. She eventually would teach sixth grade there, and then transfer to Northside Middle School when it opened. It was here that she became head of the English department and continued her work with the children. She loved reading and poetry, and instilled this love in many of her students. When she retired, she volunteered to teach the Great Books Program to sixth graders at Edgewood Elementary School. When she passed away in 1999, her longtime friend, Michael Cornell, with Paine Webber Investments, funded a reading grant in her name to honor her and continue her legacy. When this grant ended, her family continued to fund the grant in her memory.
  • Emerson (Elementary) - up to $1,000 annually - Joyce Emerson joyfully taught first grade for 26 years at Forest Hills.  Harold Gallagher, the Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education stated in a letter, “You have always been an outstanding teacher in the community.”  “Thanks for helping all the children in Forest Hills School for so many years.”  Several generations of students are the inheritors of her love and teaching.  She believed in giving individual attention to each student.  Joyce believed in creating quality work to engage her students in the process of learning.  Former Forest Hills principal Lowell LaGarde remembered that Joyce set standards of caring and excellence.  He stated, “She always went the extra mile to help her children.”  He wrote in a classroom observation, “I wish I had had a first grade teacher when I was in school, who could have made the work as interesting.”  “Joyce has the power to hold their interest.”
Impact Grant Program
This program funds large scale project ideas that make the greatest impact for a grade level, school, or the entire district for up to $3,000. Grants are due on February 6, 2026. Grant recipients will be notified on or before March 6, 2026.
 
Click here to access the application.
 
Past Grant Recipients