Teachers at nine Fayette County schools were surprised with gift baskets, balloons and Bright Idea checks ranging from $671 to $1500 recently when a group of Operation Round-Up Board members, judges and EMC employees showed up at schools to announce this year’s winners. The Operation Round-Up Trust Board awarded $25,042.82 in Bright Idea grants to 21 deserving classrooms throughout the EMC’s service area leaving excited teachers at every school.

Earlier this year, the Trust asked teachers in grades K-12 to submit proposals for innovative classroom projects and 81 grant applications were received. A group of retired teachers from Coweta, Fayette and Heard counties rated the requests according to need, level of creativity in the learning experience, and student involvement.

Winners in Fayette County were Mary Crocker, Our Lady of Victory Catholic, $671 for “Creating a Butterfly Habitat”; Chrissy Greenberg, Cleveland Elementary, $685 for “Reader’s Theatre Live”; JoAnn Rouse and Eric Todd, Rising Starr Middle, $1,000 for “Painted Patchwork – A Mural of History”; April DeGennaro, Peeples Elementary, $1,500 for “Thinking Like A Scientist”; Laurie West, Braelinn Elementary, $899 for ‘Mountain Mystery Writing project”; Diane Calsbeek, Landmark Christian, $750 for “Flexible Frame”; Laura Kennedy, Whitewater Middle, $1,500 for ‘From Teen to Teen”; Darilyn Esterline, Whitewater High, $950 for “Intonation Innovation and Rhythm Rap”; and Kimberly Hearn, $1,497.82 for “Drum Circle”. The Bright ideas program is sponsored by the Coweta-Fayette EMC Operation Round-Up Trust from funds raised by EMC members that allow their bills to be rounded up to the nearest dollar each month. This is the fourth year this program has been offered to teachers and will be available once again for the 2009-2010 school year, so teachers need to begin now working on plans for their applications.

Coweta-Fayette EMC is consumer-owned cooperative providing electricity and related services to 70,000 consumers in Fayette, Coweta, Heard, South Fulton, Meriwether, Clayton, Spalding and Troup counties.

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