Lab helps secure more than $170,000 for development projects

Contact: Kay Roybal, k_roybal@lanl.gov, (505) 665-0582 (00-123)

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LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Sept. 19, 2000 -- Ninety Santa Fe teenagers this fall will learn "Smart Moves" to help them stay away from alcohol and drugs. At the same time, student teachers in Española, Chama and Mora will receive grants to learn the latest methods to teach science and math. And both these opportunities are part of a new program sponsored by the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The Community Technical Assistance pilot project matches grant writers to regional governments and nonprofit organizations in an effort to leverage available funds to assist with local needs.

"These initial successes are important, but even more important is that the CTA program adds to our options for working with local organizations and contributing to community development," said Deputy Lab Director Joe Salgado. "Our goal is to build strong, long-lasting partnerships that will benefit the entire region."

"Community organizations have always come to the Laboratory seeking financial assistance that legally we aren't able to give," said Christina Armijo who heads the Laboratory's Community Relations Office. "But we know there's money out there, and we can provide the resources to go after it."

The program will evaluate proposals aimed primarily at business and infrastructure development to include related quality of life issues. Administrators will identify and match up needs and resources and provide an appropriate grant writer to complete the proposal. The Department of Energy Los Alamos Office approved the pilot project and allowed $125,000 to fund it last October.

Two grants have already been awarded as a result of efforts from the program. The latest -- $125,000 from the New Mexico Department of Health -- will allow Santa Fe County to provide a substance abuse program for teenagers, through the Boys' and Girls' Club, the County Extension Services and the 4-H Club. The CTA project identified a grant writer with the particular expertise to effectively present the county's case in the grant proposal. CTA paid the grant writer an hourly rate for her effort in securing the funding for the program.

The program, called "Smart Moves," is a national, scientifically based effort to teach teenagers to make intelligent choices in many areas of their lives. The county has begun to recruit 90 teenagers from three rural Boys' and Girls' Clubs who will explore activities in agriculture, horticulture, and veterinary, natural and engineering science through County Extension Service programs.

Another CTA success resulted in an award of $48,000 to develop a student teaching program for northern New Mexico's new Math and Science Academy. The Academy is an initiative in three public middle schools in Española, Chama and Mora to provide students with sound preparation in math, science and technology by training teams of teachers in how to build curricula that use cutting-edge instructional methods.

The Teacher Quality Enhancement State Grant from the New Mexico Commission on Higher Education will allow the Northern New Mexico Council on Excellence in Education, which oversees the Academy, to hire student teachers for the classrooms of participating middle school teachers. The grant will provide stipends to the student teachers, structured as loans to be forgiven if the student teachers work in the local school systems for two years after they are eligible for hire.

The successful grant proposal, written under a contract with the CTA program, will allow the new Academy to realize a key component of its mission: to train as many student teachers as possible in its new math and science curriculum.

Another dozen project proposals seeking more than $5 million are being considered to benefit a number of regional nonprofit organizations and local governments including Rio Arriba County, the Village of Chama, the Española Community Development Corporation, Hands Across Cultures, the University of New Mexico-Taos Educational Center and the Bernalillo site of the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos, the Pueblo of Cochiti, and the Tri-County Higher Education Association.

More news releases from the Community and External Relations Division (CER)