LISD Education Foundation awarded $103,000 to district teachers, including M9 Librarian Kayla Hill on Aug. 16. LEF’s goal is to provide teachers with funding for projects that the district doesn’t cover in their budget.

  Hill was among the group of teachers who received a grant.

“I actually got two grants, so it was really exciting,” Hill said. 

One of the grants was for hydroponic gardens, which allows for not only fresh food to be grown within the school, but also for year round education for some science classes. Due to gardens being cultivated indoors, the plants grown won’t have to deal with the harsh Texas weather.

The grant also included $2,500 for books for the M9 library.

“Thanks to these grants we will be able to vastly improve our library and meet students’ requests for new books,” said Hill.

Handing out thousands of dollars isn’t a rarity for LEF. The foundation covers 69 campuses and has 6,500 employees. Marketing Director Adriana Mena shared  LEF has given upwards of $100,000 for five consecutive years now. 

LEF grant money comes from  teachers, sponsors, and donors. Donations can be made on the LEF website.

“LEF has been able to continue our mission of helping meet teachers’ needs and requests throughout the district,” Mena said. “We’ve had a lot of success within the past five years specifically which has helped take LEF to new heights.”

  Teachers  apply for these grants, for  large scale projects. These requests are then reviewed on multiple levels, and then sorted by priority.

“The process is actually quite complex,” Mena said. “We obviously want to be able to meet every teacher’s requests, but we have to prioritize some over others. With that being said, we’re able to meet the overall majority of requests.”

Mena says the foundation doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon either with big plans for the future to benefit both teachers and students across the district.

“Next year we hope to be able to grant even more to teachers through projects such as LEF Golf Classic at Castle Hills in which anyone can join in to help raise funds for LEF,” Mena said. “We can’t wait to continue our mission of aiding teachers across LISD.