The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation created Minigrants — awards of $500 given to public schools and public libraries for projects that foster creative expression, working together, and interaction with a diverse community.

Come up with a creative program that can be enacted by students with their librarian, read the instructions, and complete the online application form.

Deadline date: March 15, 2012

Programs funded in the past have included:

• A First Grade’s Snowy Day
• Whirligigs Project
• Haiku Graffiti
• an ongoing pen pal project bringing together disparate communities
• a multicultural portrait project
• an art project culminating in an art show, a mural or a quilt
• bookmaking
• creating and performing a puppet show
• an intergenerational journal or activity

Source: Ezra Jack Keats Foundation Minigrant Program Puts Funding Directly in Hands of Teachers and Librarians at Public Schools and Libraries