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This undated photo shows the United Way’s South Franklin Community Center.
Courtesy of Meta Eagle Mountain Data Center
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This undated photo shows members of the Hearts Knit Together nonprofit organization.
Courtesy of Meta Eagle Mountain Data Center
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This undated photo shows the United Way’s South Franklin Community Center.
This undated photo shows members of the Hearts Knit Together nonprofit organization.
The Meta Eagle Mountain Data Center announced its 2022 community action grants recipients Monday.
Meta’s Community Action Grants Program funds schools and registered 501(c)(3) nonprofits in the areas surrounding Meta Data Centers. These organizations apply, then Meta works with the Charities of America Foundation to award grants to successful applicants. This is the second year that the Eagle Mountain Data Center has awarded grants to the community through this program.
“Through our Data Center Community Action Grants program, Meta provides funding for nonprofits and schools to support the long-term vitality of Eagle Mountain,” a post on the Meta Eagle Mountain Data Center Facebook page reads. “We fund projects that help put the power of technology to use for community benefit, connect people online or off, and improve STEM education.”
This year, the data center awarded grants to a wide variety of organizations, including schools in the Alpine School District, nonprofits supporting the LGBTQ+ community, the Provo Bicycle Collective and more.
According to William Marks, community development regional manager at the Meta Eagle Mountain Data Center, the center provided grants to fund specific projects, which accounts for the variation in grant size.
“We get everything from the really small requests all the way up to $10,000, $20,000,” he said. “A big broad spectrum of requests and a big broad spectrum of nonprofits and schools that we support.”
Marks said it’s important to the team at the data center that they develop a good relationship with their grant recipients, adding that they have enjoyed getting to meet the leaders at these nonprofit organizations, attending workshops and classes with them and becoming more familiar with their cause .
“I can say on behalf of our entire team that this is our favorite part of our community engagement,” he said. “It’s our goal to interact with all of these community members. We don’t just want to give them money and not have a great relationship.”
This year, five schools in Alpine School District received community action grants, including the Dan W. Peterson School, which received $24,290; Windsor Elementary School, which received $14,300; Eagle Valley Elementary School, which received $7,500; Black Ridge Elementary School, which received $750; and Polaris High School, which received $7,500.
“We are extremely grateful for our partnership with Facebook as they have awarded five of our schools and two programs with their community action grants. The funding will significantly enhance educational opportunities for students,” said David Stephenson, the executive director of external relations and communications for Alpine School District, referencing the company’s former name. “We look forward to continuing or strong relationship with Facebook as they move forward in reaching out to our communities. We encourage any business partner to reach out to the Alpine Foundation to join in helping our schools — foundation.alpineschools.org.”
Additional schools and nonprofits that received grants this year include:
- Utah 4-H—USU Extension$10,000: To empower teens in leadership and STEM skills to share their knowledge with other kids through 4-H Teens as Teachers.
- United Way of Utah County$15,000: To promote technology and STEM education that connects at-risk children and families to opportunities and resources.
- Success in Education Foundation$20,000: To provide Code to Success coding and web development courses to students, including classes on HTML, CSS, Java Script and REACT.
- Hearts Knit Together, Linda Simmons, executive director$10,000: To provide improved internet capabilities and a greater social media presence to aid in their support of victims of domestic violence and abuse.
- Boys and Girls Club of Utah County$15,000: To provide hands-on STEM learning activities for 3,500 low-income and minority students to improve engagement.
- Just For Kids of Utah County Inc.$6,000: To provide technology to increase online participation and enable more students to join their Live @ HIVE STEM classes.
- Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind Education Foundation$10,000: To provide assistive technology to deaf and blind children to bridge the gap caused by sensory loss.
- Sustainable startups$20,000: To create microlearning content for Coding 4 Careers to boost engagement with and access to coding for underrepresented groups.
- Provo Bicycle Collective$10,080: To support new hardware and software to enhance educational programs, improve security and build an engaging, user-centric digital presence.
- Utah Valley University$13,580: To support a multidisciplinary VR project that scales across secondary education and state standards to influence STEM-related educational opportunities.
- The Penny Project$10,000: To provide school supplies, technology and educational programs to help students be more successful.
- Eagle Mountain Performing Arts Coalition, $6,000: To provide the Turn it up! Light it Up! program with a sound system, lighting boards, computer programs and digital instruments to enhance the Eagle Mountain Community Theater and Symphony Orchestra.
- Encircle$5,000: To support programs that help LGBTQ+ youth to navigate, build and strengthen family relationships.
- Equality Utah Foundation$5,000: To support the queer lecture series QTalks and the Business Equality Leader program as part of their efforts to secure equal rights and protections and help unify and uplift the LGBTQ community.
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