Carolyn Watson Rural Oklahoma Community Foundation

Arts, Culture & History

AIRC Inc. – $20,000 – To support an experiential youth development program for middle school students that integrates American Indian values to build resilience, promote wellness and prevent substance abuse.

Mid-America Arts Alliance – $11,000 – To strengthen Oklahoma’s rural arts ecosystem by equipping artists with essential entrepreneurial skills through Artist INC Express (AIX) workshops.

Oklahoma Forest Heritage Center Inc. – $5,000 – To support the Beavers Bend Fold Festival and Craft Show, showcasing traditional folk arts, live music and handcrafted goods.

Oklahoma Historical Society – $3,000 – To support a three-day history camp for youth that brings Fort Towson’s past to life through interactive learning experiences.

Oklahoma Museums Association – $10,000 – To strengthen rural museums by providing professional development in marketing, fundraising, collections care and digital accessibility.

The Woody Guthrie Coalition Inc. – $2,500 – To support a free creative writing workshop at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival (WoodyFest) that engages students in storytelling, songwriting and reflection.

Economic Development

Caddo Kiowa Technology Center – $35,000 – To support workforce development in rural southwest Oklahoma by training electrical line workers to replace retiring professionals and meet industry demands in communities and cooperatives.

Communities Unlimited – $20,000 – To support rural small businesses through 1-on-1 technical assistance, financial literacy training and business development resources.

Longshadows Ranch LTD – $20,000 – To support a hands-on agricultural training program designed to teach youth and young adults sustainable and profitable farming practices.

Zoe Institute Inc. – $20,000 – To support Work Ready Tahlequah, part of the statewide Work Ready Oklahoma initiative, which helps financially vulnerable Oklahomans—including veterans, the unemployed and those re-entering society—gain skills for long-term employment.

Health

Compassion Outreach Center Inc. – $15,000 – To help expand medical and dental care for uninsured residents in Coal County.

D-DENT – $10,000 – To help improve oral health care access for low-income, uninsured individuals in rural Oklahoma through partnerships with local dental clinics and volunteer professionals.

LIFT Community Action Agency – $30,000 – To enhance mental health, well-being and safety for individuals in Choctaw, McCurtain and Pushmataha counties by expanding access to behavioral health treatment, recovery support services and community safety initiatives.

Oklahoma State University Foundation – $20,000 – To support the Project ECHO Initiative, which uses telementoring technology to expand access to specialized health care in rural and underserved Oklahoma communities—improving patient outcomes, strengthening care networks and increasing health care accessibility.

Stigler Health & Wellness Center Inc. – $20,000 – To support HarvestRx, which integrates nutrition support into health care to address diet-related diseases in rural Oklahoma.

SW Oklahoma Regional Transportation Planning Organization – $30,000 – To help improve transportation access for underserved populations in Caddo and Kiowa Counties, enabling better connections to health care, employment, education and food resources.

Libraries & Literacy

Butterfly Rain New Beginnings – $20,000 – To support an afterschool and summer literacy initiative, in partnership with Lowrey Public School, that promotes reading among early childhood through middle school students.

Cartwright Memorial Library – $6,500 – To help expand the Cartwright Library tutoring program to strengthen reading and math skills, with dedicated support for individuals working toward their GED.

Eastern Oklahoma Library System / Muskogee Public Library – $20,000 – To provide GED preparation, Adult Basic Education, English as a Second Language, U.S. Citizenship test prep and computer/media literacy through hybrid classes in Adair, Cherokee and McIntosh counties.

Hobart Public Library – $3,000 – To help maintain and expand access to the Overdrive E-Books program, ensuring that more community members can utilize digital reading resources.

KI BOIS Community Action – $3,000 – To promote early literacy, school readiness and parent-child engagement by providing monthly books to children in Haskell County.

Safety

Choctaw County Ambulance Authority – $25,000 – To support the Star Life Rural EMS Conference that offers free continuing education for EMTs, paramedics, firefighters, police and health care professionals from southeast Oklahoma and surrounding states.

Coalgate Fire Department / City of Coalgate – $25,000 – To provide six sets of bunker gear (boots, pants, coats, helmets, Nomex hoods and flashlights) and two thermal imaging cameras for the Coalgate firefighters.

Fort Towson Volunteer Fire Department – $28,845 – To provide new turnout gear to 11 volunteer firefighters, including helmets, gloves, boots, pants and jackets.

Snyder Volunteer Fire Department – $25,000 – To provide updated Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for 10 volunteer firefighters, including boots, helmets, bunker pants and jackets, gloves and Nomex hoods.

Arts & Culture

Atoka High School – $3,820 – To support the humanities class, which introduces students to international artists and various aspects of painting, music and cultural exploration.

Burns Flat Dill City – $4,330 – To support their Colorful Capers program where elementary students collaborate with high school English and art students to create graphic novels.

Carnegie Public Schools – $4,285 – To provide a hands-on history lesson on printmaking, from its origins in ancient China to its evolution with artists like Dürer, Picasso and Matisse compared to present day technology.

Eufaula Public Schools – $5,000 – To develop a comprehensive speech and drama curriculum.

Hugo Elementary School – $3,920 – To support the school’s Artful Explorers program, which will integrate science and social-emotional learning with learning art techniques.

Marble City Public School – $5,000 – To deepen students’ understanding of visual arts by connecting them to local history, indigenous culture and contemporary art.

Mountain View-Gotebo – $4,193 – To replace photography equipment for the yearbook staff and ag communications class.

Smithville High School – $4,836 – To continue the school’s 80+ year tradition of creating a school yearbook while enhancing students’ skills in journalism, photography and art.

Smithville High School – $4,300 – For their I Designed That! program where students explore artistic design, digital art and career opportunities in clothing design and marketing.

Smithville Public School – $4,770 – To support the school’s new speech class, which will develop and perform monologues, plays and poetry for the student body and community.

Tipton Public Schools – $3,900 – To support their Exploring the Arts in Humanities program, which combines art classes with visits to cultural and historical sites.

Tishomingo Public Schools – $5,000 – To create stop-motion animated videos and provide music, dance and media instruction in collaboration with teaching artist Austin Hartel.

Tupelo Elementary School – $2,220 – To support a 12-week etiquette course that teaches students essential manners and social skills for the home, school and community.

Tushka High School – $3,100 – To support a project integrating abstract painting with architectural and interior design.

Weleetka Public Schools – $4,000 – To support set construction, costumes and performance materials for the school’s production of “Frozen.”

English Language Arts

Caddo Public Schools – $2,692 – To support a comprehensive, multisensory therapy system that targets reading and math intervention for students with dyslexia and dyscalculia aged 14 and up.

Granite Public School – $3,328 – To create a dedicated library space for pre-K – 6^th grade students, expanding beyond the confines of classroom libraries.

Hanna Public School – $4,912 – To increase daily reading practice for students by providing access to engaging books across various genres.

Hugo Public Schools – $2,000 – To support reading reward field trips designed to motivate students to read and enhance literacy skills.

Lookeba-Sickles Public School – $2,500 – To support the use of SRA Reading Labs to offer self-paced, high-interest stories that help improve literacy for students who struggle with grade-level reading.

Norwood Elementary – $5,000 – For their Being a Reader and Writer project that combines print and digital materials to enhance literacy for elementary age students.

Shady Grove School – $2,244 – To provide students with books and interactive games at various reading levels to improve fluency and provide support for special needs students.

Wallace Byrd Middle School – Coalgate Public Schools – $3,641 – To support a unit on the Oklahoma City bombing and the importance of remembering history, including a trip to the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum.

Westville Public Schools – $825 – To support a Holocaust remembrance project that will explore the historical context, causes and consequences.

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM)

Antlers High School – $4,500 – To provide students hands-on experience in horticulture by setting up and managing a Hydramax Hydroponics system.

Boone-Apache Elementary – $3,988 – To introduce students to coding, circuits, engineering and simple computations.

Boone-Apache Public School – $3,400 – To teach students basic computer coding by creating patterns that direct the movements of a small robot.

Carnegie High School – $2,272 – To support technology in the biology lab that explores cellular functions like respiration and photosynthesis.

Carnegie Public Schools – $2,800 – To support hands-on learning about erosion, focusing on how streams, rivers and deltas impact land.

Colbert Public School – $1,000 – To support Kidvation Global, a project that empowers students to develop innovative products to solve real-world problems.

Clayton Public School – $5,000 – To enhance physical science and chemistry learning through hands-on labs and experiments.

Hinton Schools – $2,593 – To support the 3^rd and 4^th grade STEM program focusing on space exploration, including a trip to Science Museum Oklahoma.

Hollis Public Schools – $3,400 – To provide students with hands-on experience, learning the ins and outs of reporting, storytelling and the equipment needed.

McCall Middle School – $1,577 – To allow students to explore digital marketing, podcasting, photography and videography as they create a podcast and newsletter.

Medicine Park Aquarium + Ft. Cobb-Broxton, Carnegie and Lookeba-Sickles – $2,895 – To provide an immersive learning experience at a natural science facility, featuring two interactive science classes and animal feeding activities.

Milburn Elementary – $2,500 – To engage elementary students in hands-on STEM activities that explore concepts such as physics, engineering and coding.

Milburn Public School – $4,472 – To introduce LEGO Spike Prime sets, providing students with hands-on experiences that develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Mountain View-Gotebo – $5,000 – To introduce an aquaponics system, combining aquaculture and hydroponics and offering valuable hands-on experiences that extend beyond traditional classroom learning.

Olustee-Eldorado Public Schools – $3,498 – To provide hands-on learning opportunities using an aeroponics system to grow plants indoors without soil.

Sallie Gillentine Elementary – $4,225 – To provide students with computer science curriculum and manipulatives like pattern blocks, circuit kits and robot builders to learn algorithms and sequences.

Tipton Public Schools – $4,979 – To support programming for middle school classrooms where students can explore coding, engineering and robotics.

Tishomingo Elementary School – $5,000 – To teach students drone operation while exploring potential future careers in coding, drone technology, crisis prevention and videography.

Tupelo Elementary School – $575 – To support hands-on, in-depth exploration of natural disasters such as volcanoes, tornadoes and earthquakes.

Tuskahoma Public School – $5,000 – To support Project Lead The Way (PLTW) Flight and Space curriculum, offering hands-on learning experiences in aerospace and 3D printing.

Social Studies

Maryetta School – $1,093 – To provide a series of social studies projects that teach about the 50 states, the voting experience and economic supply and demand.

Arts, Culture & History

deadCenter Film – $15,000 – To support a rural tour offering film education and career exploration activities for middle, high school and technology center students.

General Tommy Franks Leadership Institute and Museum – $10,000 – To support a roadshow and mobile classroom project inspired by General Tommy Franks’ leadership and his post-9/11 role, allowing students to explore cultural aspects of more than 25 countries.

Latimer County Arts Council – $8,000 – To provide a live theatre experience to the community with a full-scale musical production of The Wizard of Oz.

Oklahoma Historical Society – $10,000 – To support the Fort Towson Historic Site’s annual youth history camp and a garment closet with authentic, period-specific attire.

Oklahoma Museums Association – $10,000 – To support scholarships for rural museum staff and board members to attend the 2024 Museum Conference in Idabel.

Oklahoma State University Foundation – $20,000 – To increase access to cultural and civic information for Indigenous communities, building on KOSU’s Indigenous Affairs reporting.

Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition – $20,000 – To support arts & culture summits that will connect rural artists with wide-ranging resources at the local, regional and state level.

Woody Guthrie Coalition – $2,000 – To support a creative writing workshop during the 2024 WoodyFest in Okemah that will explore Woody Guthrie’s music and lyrics.

Economic Development

Oklahoma Council on Economic Education – $15,000 – To support specialized training, workshops and resources for rural Oklahoma teachers focusing on personal finance, entrepreneurship, economics and innovative teaching methods.

Rural Enterprises of Oklahoma – $20,000 – To support access to training, counseling, capital and technical assistance for rural entrepreneurs and business owners.

Health & Safety

Boggy Volunteer Fire Department – $30,000 – To support necessary facility updates to boost efficiency in emergencies, provide a conducive learning environment for training and improve the department’s ISO rating, lowering the community’s home insurance premiums.

Choctaw County Ambulance Authority – $30,000 – To support a training conference offering free education and continuing education credits for EMS personnel in Choctaw, Pushmataha, McCurtain, Bryan, Atoka and Marshall counties.

City of Hugo – $20,000 – To enhance fire safety and education to align with state and national objectives to help reduce fire hazards.

Hamilton Health Box Foundation – $30,000 – To help launch rural primary care microclinics utilizing a hybrid in-person and telehealth model to serve underserved rural populations.

Kiamichi Economic Development District of Oklahoma – $40,000 – To support a mobility management program in southeast Oklahoma to improve service accessibility and efficiency for rural citizens.

LIFT Community Action Agency – $5,000 – To help expand RSVP’s healthy futures focus, providing preventative health screenings, education for healthy living and access to health resources, insurance and services.

Oklahoma Dental Foundation – $30,000 – To support dental treatment and education in rural areas through the MobileSmiles program.

Southern Oklahoma Development Association – $20,000 – To help improve mobility for rural citizens, seniors and individuals with disabilities by expanding transportation options.

SRT, Incorporated – $13,000 – To support a biannual training for Community Support Networks covering suicide and mental health awareness, recognizing crises in children and teens, and developing a trauma-informed lens.

Swink Volunteer Fire Department – $30,000 – To equip the Swink volunteer fire department with essential tools and training for vehicle extrication.

Tinker Federal Credit Union Foundation – $8,715 – A partnership between TFCU and the Watson Foundation to replace the Antlers Fire Department’s outdated bunker gear.

Tinker Federal Credit Union Foundation – $4,680 – A partnership between TFCU and the Watson Foundation to replace the Idabel Police Department’s expired ballistic vests.

Warrior’s Rest Foundation – $20,000 – To train first responders in rural Oklahoma to form multi-disciplinary peer support teams, offering mental health support among colleagues.

Libraries & Literacy

Adair County Imagination Library – $5,000 – To support the library’s Dolly Parton Imagination Library that provides age-appropriate books to children.

Cartwright Community Resource Center – $15,000 – To provide free GED classes, books and testing as well as information sessions and on-site teacher support.

Cartwright Memorial Library – $6,500 – To establish tutoring programs with a reading specialist and college math tutor to address student needs in reading, math and GED preparation.

City of Okemah Public Library – $15,000 – To launch educational programs that focus on adult education, summer tutoring for elementary and middle school students and homesteading classes for local residents.

Friends of the Wilburton Library Association – $2,500 – To support the library’s Dolly Parton Imagination Library program that provides free books to children monthly.

Reach Out and Read – $15,000 – To provide books and programmatic support for early childhood interventions during well-child visits in rural Oklahoma counties.

Arts & Culture

Battiest Elementary School – $5,000 – To support an elementary art and music program that introduces students to famous artists, traditional Choctaw beadwork and musical instruments and culminates in an end-of-year art show.

Granite Public Schools – $4,996 – To provide essential materials for the speech and drama team’s monthly Rise and Shine events as well as support one theater production per semester.

Hugo Elementary School – $3,751 – To implement a comprehensive art curriculum that engages students in creative projects around the principles of design while reinforcing core concepts in math and science.

Ravia Schools – $550 – To purchase a magnetic erasable whiteboard on wheels for the school’s music classroom.

Tipton Public School – $2,000 – To provide students with a wide range of art supplies and introduce them to local artists through a series of art workshops.

Tishomingo Elementary School – $5,000 – To support the collaboration between teaching artist Nicole Emmons and fine arts teacher Trey Hays on a project to enhance students’ storytelling and stop-motion animation skills.

Tupelo Elementary School – $1,571 – To implement an etiquette course for Tupelo elementary students.

Watts Public Schools – $700 – To support the addition of weekly art and art history lessons in elementary classroom curriculum.

Weleetka Public Schools – $1,500 – To help establish a drama department for upper elementary students and produce the play Peter Pan.

Will Rogers Elementary – $590 – To support their production of the musical AnnieKids.

English Language Arts

Antlers High School – $2,500 – To combine literacy with mentorship by pairing seniors with second-grade students to create custom-written, illustrated and constructed children’s books.

Antlers High School – $2,000 – To acquire class sets of contemporary and classic novels for use in student-led book circles and class-wide novel studies.

Apache Elementary School – $4,985 – To implement indoor and outdoor sensory pathways that offer active, engaging experiences for students to practice recursive skills that are often addressed through flashcards and worksheets.

Colbert Eastward Elementary – $2,000 – To enrich classroom libraries with new books that align with lessons and match student interests.

Mannsville Elementary School – $3,689 – To address the urgent need for a reading intervention classroom at Mannsville Elementary School where a significant number of students require support through Response to Intervention plans.

Milburn Elementary School – $5,000 – To support their Start Right program that uses Start Right Readers and an interactive board to reinforce weekly curriculum and enhance the teaching process.

Norwood Elementary – $5,000 – To purchase the Being a Reader program for 3-5 grade students to help create a comprehensive ELA curriculum and enhance K-5 English language arts curriculum.

Rattan Elementary – $3,699 – To implement the Frog Street Pre-K Curriculum, an interactive educational program that encompasses ten learning domains, including literacy, math and social-emotional development.

Shady Grove School – $3,739 – To enhance children’s language and literacy development through dramatic play and storytelling props.

Accelerated Reader

Apache Elementary – $2,000 – To purchase new books that align with the emergent reader level to allow students to develop early reading skills.

Colbert Eastward School – $1,033 – To expand the classroom library by adding more accelerated readers to accommodate the diverse range of student reading levels.

Hollis Public Schools – $3,500 – To provide level-appropriate books for the classroom and implement the accelerated reader program.

 

Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM)

Agriculture & Sustainable Farming

Bennington High School – $5,000 – To engage students in the science of chicken embryology by tracking the development of eggs from fertilization to hatching.

Blair Public School – $5,000 – To purchase greenhouse heaters and other year-round supplies to help revitalize the school’s greenhouse and enhance STEM activities in horticulture and botany.

Boone-Apache Public Schools – $2,260 – To introduce hands-on agricultural learning by observing and caring for chickens from hatching to the production of eggs or meat.

Carnegie High School – $5,000 – To acquire a greenhouse for the Carnegie Agricultural Education program.

Eufaula Public Schools – $4,816 – To set up an indoor aquaponics grow system that will offer students hands-on experience in indoor food production.

Tushka High School – $3,500 – To enhance the school’s existing greenhouse curriculum by introducing a hydroponics system.

Wapanucka High School – $4,000 – To employ hydroponics to enhance students’ agricultural, math, science and life skills.

Math & Science

Achille High School – $5,000 – To update and enhance the science lab and classroom so they can better conduct hands-on experiments and demonstrations.

Atoka High School – $4,000 – To integrate 3D printing and interactive models into biology, zoology, chemistry and physical science curriculum to offer students tactile and visual representation of complex concepts.

Caney Public School – $3,025 – To reintroduce quilting as a tool to enhance students’ math skills, particularly in the areas of measurement and fractions, as well as revive the art of quilting.

Gans High School – $5,000 – To implement a hands-on research program that involves students in quail research and the study of aquatic insects and trout behavior.

Maryetta School – $2,000 – To implement a project-based learning activity that focuses on teaching students about the force of wind and how sail shape and size influence the capture and transformation of wind energy.

McCall Middle School – $4,544 – To implement STEM lessons for middle school students that allow them to explore STEM concepts and apply their knowledge to hands-on projects.

Shady Grove School – $1,570 – To pair 4^th and 8^th-grade students on interactive science projects that cover motion and stability, molecular structures, heredity, waves, technology and biological diversity.

Technology & Engineering

Coalgate Public Schools – $5,000 – To utilize VEX IQ robots to provide hands-on teamwork opportunities that foster problem solving, coding and robotics.

Coleman Public School – $5,000 – To enhance early reading and math learning through Classroom Alive Zookeeper Edition, an interactive resource where students embark on imaginative zoo adventures, promoting joyful learning experiences.

Coleman Public School – $4,500 – To purchase Snap Circuits Kits and TinkerCAD software to teach students about circuitry and coding.

Eufaula High School – $1,500 – To allow physical science students to build and code their own robots using Sphero Bolt coding robots.

Hollis Middle School – $3,400 – To implement a hands-on media project where students construct their own media pieces, helping to develop students’ presentation, mass and visual communication skills.

Navajo Public Schools – $4,096 – To utilize 3D printing to provide students with opportunities to explore immersive virtual worlds, engage in hands-on robotics projects and bring their ideas to life.

Peavine School – $3,000 – To provide students with hands-on learning opportunities through a mobile STEM lab equipped with materials such as Lego, snap circuits and robotic kits.

Tupelo Independent School District – $5,000 – To use 3D printing to introduce high school students to STEM Concepts and help them explore diverse career fields.

Will Rogers Elementary – $3,000 – To provide iPads to students with special needs, offering them with access to online learning tools for subjects from letter and number recognition to reading comprehension.

Manipulatives & Early STEM Education

Carnegie Elementary – $4,102 – To implement Lego Education’s curriculum for students in the Gifted and Talented program.

Coleman Schools – $2,151 – To create sensory boxes for Pre-K and kindergarten classrooms that allow students to explore and learn through their senses without creating a mess.

Hugo Elementary School – $3,750 – To purchase supplies to help create a STEM-rich environment for Pre-K students.

Shady Grove Elementary – $3,500 – To create an immersive STEM station in the kindergarten classroom focusing on animals and their habitats.

Shady Grove School – $2,625 – To establish a hands-on science station in the classroom, an outdoor science area and use math games with manipulatives to help students grasp challenging concepts.

Tipton Elementary – $3,975 – To purchase STEM materials to create age-appropriate curriculum with activities, experiments and projects.

Social Studies

Smithville Elementary School – $3,000 – To acquire grade-level books that delve into historical events leading to Oklahoma’s statehood and the history of Native American settlements in the region.

Westville Learning Academy – $1,819 – To implement History Comes Alive, a program where students embark on a journey to learn about Oklahoma history through Traveling Trunks provided by the Oklahoma Historical Society.