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CenturyLink announced it is awarding $500,000 to fund 114 technology-focused projects at schools across the country, including Buckingham County Primary School, as part of CenturyLink Clarke M. Williams Foundation’s 2019-20 Teachers and Technology grant program.

“Our goal with these grants is to help teachers expose students to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) concepts through the use of innovative equipment and projects,” Stephanie Calhoun, CenturyLink vice president of talent management, said in a release distributed Thursday, May 14. “Our teachers and students have faced so many challenges this spring with closures and adapting to distance and online classes. These CenturyLink grants will help teachers reach and teach. It helps them bring useful technology into everyday learning.”

According to the release, grants funded through the 2019-20 program will be distributed to schools in the fall to provide a range of equipment including robotics, drones, virtual reality mechanisms, laptops, microscopes and more.

The release states the Teachers and Technology program, which has distributed more than $11 million since its inception, awards grants of up to $5,000 per project to schools in CenturyLink’s local service and corporate locations in support of projects submitted by pre-K through Grade 12 teachers to innovatively implement technology in their classrooms.

More than 300 grant applications were submitted to the grants program from schools across the United States, and 114 were awarded based on the impact they will have on students in the classroom and the overall innovation of the project, according to the release.

It is noted CenturyLink service is neither required nor considered in the review of applications.

An online list of grantees shows that Buckingham’s grant was awarded to primary school teacher Laura Holder in the amount of $4,175 for the school’s “Future Thinkers of Tomorrow” program.