Editor’s note: For full coverage of the FEEF grant awards see the Wednesday edition of The Fairhope Courier.

FAIRHOPE, Ala. - All six Fairhope public schools were surprise recipients today of $60,000 in grants from the Fairhope Educational Enrichment Foundation, a nonprofit group that provides funding and other support to local schools.

The schools had applied for various grants and knew FEEF board members were visiting on Nov. 29 but did not know they would be receiving grant award checks during those visits, Fairhope Intermediate School Principal Carol Broughton said.

“They handed me the check this morning,” Broughton said not long after FEEF’s 9:45 a.m. visit when the group delivered a check for $20,581.90. “That’s why I had tears in my eyes. I could not believe it. We didn’t know what they were coming for.”

The grant will be used to purchase 120 NEO2s, a mobile e-learning device similar to a small laptop, according to a FEEF news release.

“The FEEF award this morning was such a reflection of community support, and that’s how great schools become great,” Broughton said. “Our is truly a ‘learning community.’ When your community values learning, and they work and invest their time, energy and money toward the learning process, everybody wins. So the community is winning right along with Fairhope Intermediate School, because it will make us all stronger.”

FEEF visited began its surprise grant-making visits Monday morning at the Fairhope K-Center and ended at the J. Larry Newton School just before noon.

The $60,000 in grants awarded this year was the largest amount given in FEEF’s history, according to the group’s news release.

“We saw a big increase in requests this year because we asked teachers and administrators to think beyond the traditional one to two thousand dollar grant,” stated Jack Burrell, FEEF president. “The Grants Committee, made up of six FEEF board members, did a great job evaluating the grants and applying specific criteria to choose the winners. All of the teachers who submitted a grant should be congratulated and encouraged to apply again next year.”

The FIS grant was applied for by fifth-grade teacher Betty Stejskal, which is where the FEEF board members gathered with school staff and students to share the good news.

Balloons and laughter in that classroom created a party atmosphere that was contagious.

But when a Fairhope Courier reporter announced to the students that their pictures might be published in the newspaper, and they could either mug for the camera or be shown studying, when the camera shutter clicked, the classroom had turned immediately silent as the students posed with pens and pencils in hand and heads bent toward their books.

“That’s my kids,” Stejskal said.