A total of $30,000 in grants will benefit 31 youth-led projects designed to improve local neighborhoods and schools.
The grants, administered by the Las Vegas Neighborhood Services Department, are part of the Youth Neighborhood Association Partnership Program, or YNAPP. This is the grant program's sixth year, according to spokeswoman Mary Ann Price.
The latest round of grants will be matched by more than $330,000 in funding and in-kind donations, for the most part based on contributions of volunteer labor or donated materials and cash.
The money, said Price, "will help fund an impressive list of community improvements that range from creating personal hygiene kits for homeless students to projects such as recycling, tutoring and creating a community garden at a senior apartment complex."
At West Middle School, 2050 Sapphire Stone Ave., a $915 grant will be matched with $21,895 for a student-designed mural on a wall of the school that is often marked with graffiti.
"It is horrible," said AJ Powell, a sixth-grade lead teacher who is helping to coordinate the effort with Alma White Crenshaw, the school's student council advisor. "It's probably about 40 feet, 50 feet of wall space that has been tagged to death. It's the first thing the kids see."
And as it is visible to passersby on Lake Mead Boulevard, she added, "Everybody and their mother can see it."
She and Crenshaw and their students aim to change that.
"What we decided to do was paint it, do a multi-cultural wall and just use the children's art," Powell said. "I've been kind of letting them show me what they can do. Somebody came up with a (Nelson) Mandela painting, someone came up with one of Coretta and Martin Luther King."
Powell said she wants the children to create images not just of internationally renowned figures, but of local notables, as well. "We have tons of local heroes," she said.
Bracken Elementary School, at 1200 N. 27th St., will use its grant money in a different way. Chris Herbert, the school's magnet theme coordinator, said the grant of $1,000, with its $7,989 match, will spur the Ready-Set-Recycle program.
"It's the first time we -- the students at our school -- have been part of it," she said of the grant program. "We have had a recycling program at the school for the past few years, but the boxes are falling apart, and there aren't enough carts."
The school is part of Abitibi Consolidated's recycling project, and the grant will help expand the program.
"The students are going to go out into the community and bring in their own trash as well," she said. "We'll purchase some new carts and some heavy-duty recycling boxes, as well."
Herbert said she is particularly proud of the three fifth-grade students who put the grant proposal together and even did their own PowerPoint presentation to the grant judges.
Bianca Del Rio, Jessica Camacho and Rayce Rayos worked during the lunch times as well as after school to make sure the presentation would be effective, Herbert said.
"We're also going to be working with the UNLV Rebel recycling program," she said. "The kids will go down there to see how that works, and they'll come to school for an assembly."
The Bracken Youth Council, made up of younger teens, did a mural at the school last year. In this year's round of grants, the council will receive $900 to prepare a workshop on how to survive a natural disaster.
At the Advanced Technology Academy, 2501 Vegas Drive, a $989 grant will be matched with $4,634 to create the Road to Success program, which will combine computer training and dress-for-success workshops, as well as redecorating rooms for residents at the Center for Independent Living at 1417 N. Las Vegas Blvd.
"To qualify for the grants," wrote Price, "the projects must be youth initiated and driven, located in Las Vegas city limits and done in partnership with a neighborhood association or organization ... YNAPP projects may include nearly any positive project young Las Vegas residents devise to address a need in the community."
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