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The Cape Henlopen Educational Foundation announced Sept. 22 it will be awarding $95,000 in grants and scholarships this school year to students and teachers in the Cape Henlopen School District.

During a CHEF Friends of Cape reception at Cape Henlopen High School, community members heard from recent CHEF grant recipients about how they've benefited from the organization's contributions, highlighting the importance of its work. CHEF Board President Calvin Jackson also spoke.

"These dollars are making a difference throughout Cape," Superintendent Jenny Nauman said. "Great schools build great communities, and great communities build great schools."

CHEF is a nonprofit dedicated to inspiring learning and equipping all Cape students with resources to excel in the classroom and beyond. By investing in various teacher grants, STEM and arts programs and scholarships, student support and mentoring services, a Grow Your Own paraeducator-to-teacher program, and other educational and extracurricular initiatives and resources, CHEF bridges the gap between public funding and school needs, and enables opportunities the district may otherwise not be able to provide. 

It aims to engage the whole community, including educators, parents, legislators and local business leaders, in its work.

This year, CHEF will be giving away more than $80,000 in teacher grants and $15,000 in student performing arts scholarships, plus $5,000 in emergency funds for underserved students.

Mairin Curran, a junior at Cape, spoke about how a CHEF scholarship enabled her to attend an intensive performing arts program this summer through the Institute for American Musical Theater.

She came across the institute last spring, immediately drawn to its opportunities for skill-building, college audition preparation and industry networking. However, she said, coming from a family of nine, it was unlikely her family would be able to afford the program. That's where CHEF came in to help cover the cost.

"Those two weeks at IAMT were completely transformative," Curran said. "Every day was filled with excitement and an overwhelming sense of belonging. Training under Broadway stars pushed me past my limits and ignited my growth as a performer."

Several students, including the Cape Chorale, performed at the reception and spoke about how CHEF has supported them in their endeavors.

Beyond the arts, CHEF supports a wide range of other initiatives, such as the district's mentor program, which pairs student mentees with adult mentors from the community; Kindness Empowers, a leadership and mentorship initiative at Rehoboth Elementary School that helps young female students build confidence, character, positive relationships and key life skills; educational materials; a number of math and science extracurriculars, such as middle school math teams and Science Olympiad teams; the district's unified sports program, which joins students with and without intellectual and physical disabilities on the same sports teams to foster inclusion and friendship; adapted equipment for unified physical education; field trips; and birthday bags for students experiencing homelessness.

"Being able to touch someone's trajectory, to help move them forward, even if it's just a microsecond of their entire – what will potentially be a 95- or 100-year – life, is amazingly rewarding," said Catherine Dunning Catanach, one of the mentors in the mentor program.

For special education teacher Lisa Stetler, seeing the pride and joy on her students' faces when they participate in unified sports is something she'll always cherish. She thought back to the middle school unified basketball tournament, when students filled the gym to cheer on their peers.

"For that moment, he wasn't defined by his disability or the supports that he needs," Stetler said, growing tearful, as she pointed to a photo of one of her students smiling on the court during the tournament. "He was an athlete. He was a teammate. He was a middle school student being celebrated by his peers. These are the moments we work so hard to create for our students – not just opportunities to participate, but opportunities to belong, to be recognized and feel proud of themselves."

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