Coastal Community Foundation is awarding a $2,304,000 Catalyst Grant to Beaufort County School District, the largest Catalyst Grant yet. The funding will be distributed over five years to support a transformational extended learning program for the local community.
The grant to Beaufort County School District will accelerate the impact of the UNITE (Uniting Neighbors for Instructional Effectiveness and Trust in Education) program. This innovative approach to after-school care creates a “village” to help students while building strong relationships between families, the community, and the school district. UNITE is a partnership with 12 local faith-based and nonprofit organizations that are already embedded in the children’s neighborhoods and offer extended after-school and summer learning hours. Retired teachers and qualified community members will use district-supplied curriculum to provide additional academic support and mentoring. The program will begin for this academic year on October 14 and serve students in Pre-K through 12th grade who are living in areas with high rates of poverty and are underperforming academically due to high-risk factors.
The UNITE program launched in 2022 using federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding. The program already has proven results, with 34-point math and 27-point ELA gains for participants last fall to spring. The Catalyst Grant funding from Coastal Community Foundation will support the continuation and acceleration of the program when federal funding ends this month.
“The upcoming five years made possible by the Coastal Community Foundation provide an essential pathway for BCSD on our journey toward our strategic percentage goals of 75, 75, and 92 for Reading, Math, and Graduation Rates, respectively,” said Superintendent Frank Rodriguez. “I can’t think of a better name for the initiative than UNITE because that is exactly what it takes to move children forward as a community.”
Education is one of Coastal Community Foundation’s six pillars for a vibrant community. Over the past 50 years, CCF has granted more than $100 million to education programs. This represents close to a quarter of the organization’s lifetime grantmaking.
“Through thousands of community conversations we learned that education is one of the top priorities for people in the region,” said President and CEO Darrin Goss Sr. “Just last year, CCF granted more than $8 million to nonprofits in the education sector and this is one more investment in that essential work. We look forward to continuing to support students and educators to ensure they have access to the resources they need to be successful now and to thrive in the future.”
Coastal Community Foundation launched the Catalyst Grant program in 2020 as a category of The Beaufort Fund, CCF’s largest grantmaking program. Catalyst Grants support large-scale projects addressing community-wide issues. The grants are available to nonprofits serving Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton, or Jasper counties and ensure multi-year funding, often exceeding a hundred thousand dollars per year. Since 2020, CCF has awarded nine Catalyst Grants totaling $6.6 million. Previous recipients include Hopeful Horizons, Teach for America South Carolina, Sea Islands Heritage Academy, Communities in Schools of South Carolina, CommunityWorks, EforAll, Habitat for Humanity of the Lowcountry, and Penn Center.
