Hundreds of Sylacauga school children in four different schools will experience the benefits of $53,000 in grants from the Sylacauga City Schools Foundation next year (just a bit more than the raises the University of Alabama gave a couple of assistant football coaches). The grants will fund 42 projects proposed by 51 city school teachers; 15 grants went to Sylacauga High School, 13 to Indian Valley Elementary School, 13 to Nichols-Lawson Middle School, nine to Pinecrest Elementary School and one to the Aggie Enrichment Center. This year’s grants total $13,000 more than last year’s.

The foundation has been making these grants since 1989, a year after it was organized. In 1988, a group of Sylacauga residents decided that “the school children of Sylacauga were entitled to the same educational opportunities as those children who attended school in wealthier school districts,” according to the school system’s Web site, which proclaims Sylacauga City Schools as “the small system that dreams big.”

As an IRS-approved charitable school foundation, the group accepts tax-deductible donations from individuals, partnerships and corporations and uses the interest to fund the grants.

Over the past 21 years, the foundation has awarded more than

$660,000 in grants to classroom teachers while maintaining more than $1.2 million in principal.