Current Grants
RunningBrooke Celebrates our
2019-2020 Move2Learn Grant Partners
Here at RunningBrooke, our team is so excited to continue supporting our local teachers, administrators, and parents in giving kids the best opportunities to thrive in school. We know that physical activity is essential for academic and social development. Over the last 10 years we’ve been working with local educators, community partners, and neighborhood organizations to bring physical activity right where children spend most of their time – in school.
Through our 2019-2020 Move2Learn Partner Grants, RunningBrooke supports schools’ efforts to implement movement in the classroom setting and beyond. This year, we awarded $69,955 to twelve different programs across nine ACPS schools and the ACPS LINK club at Brent Place Apartments, and six community partners who work with ACPS students. We’re excited to see the creative ways that teachers and administrators around Alexandria are sparking happier, healthier, learning-ready students.
Take the sensory hallways at John Adams Elementary School, for example. These hallways will cultivate kinesthetic learning for children of all ages—from displays featuring the alphabet and counting numbers to more complex topics like the compass rose and angles. Giving kids an opportunity for movement outside the traditional classroom, these hallways combine high-level thinking with fun age-appropriate fitness activities and emotional check-ins, so kids can refocus their brains at transition times, during lunch, or as a break from the classroom.
Brenda Tarquinio, the 5th grade teacher who submitted the grant, is excited that the hallway will “meet the needs of all of our learners to get them active and learning at the same time. It will benefit so many kids for years to come. I personally thank you from the bottom of my heart!”
April Rodgers, a PE teacher at Ferdinand T. Day Elementary School and the 2019 ACPS Teacher of the Year, has partnered over the years with RunningBrooke to bring movement to her students through the Circus Club, Imagination Playground–life-sized building blocks that get students moving while learning–and the Of Pedals and Pages Café, a series of 6 stationary bikes that students can ride while they read and learn. Our 2019 grants will expand the Imagination Playground and establish the Trailblazers Before School Movement Program at Ferdinand T. Day Elementary School.
When asked about the impact of the grants on her students, Ms. Rodgers said, “It provides time in their academic day so that they can begin to internalize and advocate for themselves: ‘Could I take a movement break? I’m just feeling sluggish…’ or ‘I notice that I feel better and more alert after we ride the bikes than I do when we first get here from Reading.’ Though they may just be seeds now, I truly believe that we are growing a generation of learners who understand the power of including movement into their days.”
RunningBrooke is proud to support game-changing initiatives that engage kids in creative and active learning and get them active where it matters most and has the greatest impact!
RunningBrooke’s 2019–2020 Partners
ACPS classrooms and programs:
- ACPS BITS Program Storage Unit
- ACPS LINK Club at Brent Place
- Ferdinand T. Day Elementary (Imagination Playground, LINK Club, and Trailblazers Before School Movement Program)
- Francis C. Hammond Middle School (LINK CLUB)
- George Mason Elementary School (Flexible Seating)
- James K. Polk Elementary School (Active Learning Seating)
- John Adams Elementary School (Sensory/Educational Hallway)
- Lyles-Crouch Traditional Academy (Flexible Seating)
- Samuel W. Tucker Elementary (Flexible Seating and Indoor Active Learning Tools)
- TC Williams High School (Afterschool Walk Program)
- William Ramsay Elementary School (Odyssey of Adventures)
Community Partners:
- Communities in Schools of NOVA
- Cora Kelly School for Math, Science, and Technology PTA
- Friends of Huntley Meadows Park
- Girls on the Run of NOVA
- Jane Franklin Dance
- Local Motion Project
