Mississippi Power Education Foundation recently approved more than $103,370 in grants to schools throughout the service area and organizations such as the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center and the Mississippi Restaurant Association.

Organizations receiving grants included the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center in Gulfport, which received an $11,800 grant to develop the “Magic Carpet Traveling Trunks” project. The traveling interactive exhibits, designed to fit Mississippi’s state curriculum, will be based on a new permanent exhibit at the center, “Celebrate the World We Share - China.”

A $5,900 grant was awarded to the Mississippi Restaurant Association to help establish Pro-Start, a two-year high school curriculum that provides a national level of recognition and certification in the food-service industry. Combining consistent curriculum and a structured work site mentoring program, Pro-Start will provide students with the necessary tools to enter the job market or prepare for post-secondary education.

Two school systems received planning grants. Lamar County School District received a $49,000 grant to begin a 12-step strategic planning process. A $12,000 grant was awarded to Lumberton Public School District for the second phase of its strategic planning process.

Individual schools receiving grants included:

Taconi Elementary School in Biloxi received a $2,045 grant to develop “The Empowerment of Students in Creating Pop-up Grammar Portfolios” project. Through the school year, students create their own hardcover portfolios as they become proficient in grammar skills and usage.

Oak Grove Middle School in Lamar County was awarded four grants. The first is a $3,700 grant to help provide training to teachers from the Mississippi Writing/Thinking Institutes Wonder of Middle Grades. The second is a $1,500 grant to implement “Journey to a Multimedia Classroom,” which will provide resources for teachers and students to get the optimum use of technology in a one-computer classroom. A third grant for $1,509 will go toward the “Rocks, Paper, Plastic: The Evolution of Money” project. In this project, students will research and learn the role money plays in different eras. A forth grant of $1,884 will fund “Salmonella and Streptococci and E.coli! Oh My!” in which students will become microbe detectives and learn the importance of sanitary environments.

Pearl River Central Elementary School in McNeill received a $1,000 grant to begin “The Write Stuff” program, which will give students short-term and long-term writing projects to help them learn the writing process and grow as readers and writers.

D’Iberville Middle School was awarded a $1,614 grant to help support the Advanced Lab-based Eighth Grade Science course in robotics and environmental science. Students will construct and manipulate robots, as well as cover physical and earth science objectives.

Ocean Springs High School received a $3,736 grant to purchase math software and equipment that provides students with tailored assignments and instantaneous feedback and assessment, helping to raise student achievement and to boost confidence in the lower level math courses.

St. Alphonsus Elementary School in Ocean Springs was awarded a grant for $2,746 to implement “Writing Quest,” a technology-based language arts program aimed at improving the SAT language and spelling scores by 10 percent in grades 2-6 by May 2001.

Woodley Elementary School in Hattiesburg received two grants. A grant for $204 for the project “Putting the World at Your Fingertips” will supply students with atlases. A grant of $343 will fund “Making the Connection in the Millennium,” a program that will teach citizenship and how cultures exchange things such as foods and language.

Hawkins Elementary School in Hattiesburg received a $1,135 grant to implement “We Love to Read,” a project designed to expose at-risk students to children’s literature.

Hattiesburg’s Thames Elementary School was awarded $2,000 to partially fund “Student Webmasters: Accessing and Evaluating the Internet.” The program will teach 5th and 6th grade students how to find, evaluate and use information on the Internet.

Collins Middle School was awarded a grant for $109 to support an anger management project.

East Jones Elementary School in Laurel received $727 for “Sharing Our Neighborhood, Community, States and Earth.” The project will help kindergarten students with limited traveling experiences learn about the world beyond their community through the use of maps, puppets and globes.

Agricola Elementary School in Lucedale received a $420 grant to assemble four Multicultural Discovery Trunks representing Mexico, Japan, China and Africa to introduce first graders to different cultures.

Since 1984, through its foundations, Mississippi Power Company has supported excellence in education in southeast Mississippi. During the past 16 years, the foundations have awarded more than $2.5 million in grants to teachers, schools, school systems and education projects.