The Norris School District has a new fall fundraiser underway to support creative and innovative classroom grant projects through the “SEED” Grant program of the Norris Education Foundation.

What it is: The program is called Propelr and is a cash back program that brings funds back to your school district based on consumer spending at preferred local merchants and businesses. Propelr is already in place in LPS and parochial schools across Lincoln. District patrons will be receiving a mailing in September that provides them with a Norris Propelr card which they can subsequently activate and load to begin participating, which is completely free.

How it works: Using a reloadable Visa Prepaid card, the purchases at 70+ approved stores locally kick a portion of proceeds such as 5% to 20% back to the identified cardholder's selected institution, with no additional cost to cardholders. Cardholders simply pay with Propelr just like a normal debit card.

The district elected to adopt Propelr and recommended we allocate the proceeds to the Foundation, to help address the challenge of ongoing funding of SEED proposals, and it has a very broad base of appeal to expand the Foundation's outreach and encourage people to give in a way that directly impacts classroom instruction.

 Where the money will go: The district’s Foundation funds received from Propelr will go to support the Norris Foundation’s SEED Grant Program. SEED stands for Supporting Excellence in Education through Donations and is a longstanding program. As Foundation President Jerry Prange stated, “The Foundation is interested in expanding its support to help Norris be one of the best schools in Nebraska.”

Longtime Norris Foundation volunteer (and NSD Board member) Larry Grosshans added that SEED grants have helped Norris teachers for years by being “used to expand or extend an existing program/project or create a new program/project. These grants typically fund something otherwise not possible within district budget, and are innovative in their approach to helping students.” Recent SEED grant awards have gone to support orthoball chairs for classrooms, pedal power classroom desks, lending libraries for classroom use, and even Google Expeditions virtual reality viewmasters for Middle School social studies.

Propelr only retains a tiny fraction of the net donations - just 5% for processing and administrative costs. For example, if you pay with Propelr at U-Stop, who is donating 2%, 1.9% of your purchase will come through to Norris, and Propelr will retain 0.1%. The visually snappy Propelr cards have the customized Norris logo on them and are labeled for Norris.

 Norris Superintendent Dr. John Skretta stated, “We are optimistic this will be a wonderfully successful, sustained means of funding our classroom grant program for teachers because it combines patrons’ desire to frequent a myriad of great local businesses and know that their shopping dollars are coming back to the school to support our wonderful teachers, and there’s no extra costs involved for families.”

“There are literally dozens of local businesses participating, from Red Dirt Running to Runza and from Donut Hole to U-Stop. Pretty much anything you’d need as a consumer or household can help give back to Norris,” Skretta added.

The district and Norris Education Foundation are grateful for our patrons’ participation in the Propelr card initiative. You can read more information and sign up for a card through the Propelr Card website at http://propelrcard.com/

Get your Propelr card today and help a Norris teacher make their classroom even more creative and engaging for our students! (Norris parents will receive a Norris Propelr card in the mail - just load it, activate it, and start using it to give back!)