Maple Street School receives $150,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Susan Briggs
Maple Street School
Phone: 802.362.7137

MANCHESTER, Vt. – Four-year-old Maple Street School in Manchester has been awarded a $150,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, to fund the school’s library on the new campus, slated to be built in 2003.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is dedicated to bringing innovations in health and learning to the global community. In its domestic education giving programs, the foundation is committed to supporting schools that help all students achieve at high levels.

“We are thrilled to have the support of this foundation,” said Head of School Nancy Holmes Calicchio. “It is such a boost to our capital campaign for the new building and to all the people who have supported our vision of Maple Street’s new campus.”

The foundation’s grant will be the school’s fourth capital grant to help build the new campus, located behind the Equinox Terrace off Route 7A in Manchester Village. The campus will be constructed on 23 acres with a library, arts center, music facility with practice rooms, community multipurpose space/gymnasium and playing fields. The building will accommodate 110 students in Kindergarten through eighth grade.

Maple Street School is an independent, co-educational day school that started in 1998 with 37 students. Today the school educates 86 children from 18 towns in the Manchester area, one-third of whom receive financial aid.

The school’s focus is on high academic achievement, meaningful engagement in the visual and performing arts, participation in athletics and the development of individual and social responsibility.

On the Internet:
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, www.gatesfoundation.org
Maple Street School, www.maplestreetschool.com