On March 6, 2020, Versacare Foundation awarded $1,420,000 in grant funding to 189 Adventist primary and secondary schools across the United States and Canada in support of STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math).

This was Versacare Foundation’s fifth successive year funding STEM grants and marked the third consecutive year it funded every school that applied for a STEM grant. The STEM grant program has provided funding in three categories:

• $5,000 for smaller schools of three classrooms or less;

• $10,000 for larger schools of four or more classrooms and 12-year schools;

• $10,000 for senior academies.

The many uses of STEM funds include the purchase of classroom smart boards, tablets or Chromebooks for student use, equipping or updating student computer labs, installation of 3D printers and related software, initiating or funding robotics programs, instruction in software coding, and the equipping of chemistry, physics, and biology labs, and more.

Through 2020, Versacare Foundation has provided 417 schools with a total of $3,245,000 in STEM grant funding. Click here to find a complete list of the schools funded in 2020. After funding nearly half of all Adventist primary and secondary schools across the NAD with STEM grants, Versacare Foundation has ended its STEM school grant program; and for 2021 will focus on funding STEM training for teachers.

For more information about Versacare Foundation’s grant program, please visit www.versacare.org.

About Versacare

Versacare Foundation is the largest independent private foundation supporting the varied ministries of the Seventh-day Adventist Church with grant funding. A self-funded lay organization, it is comprised of both lay Adventists and present and former Adventist Church employees. It awarded its first grants in 1990, totaling $26,000, to five different Adventist ministries. Since then, it has awarded more than 1,430 grants totaling more than $28,250,000.

The book Blessed Are They, a collection of 43 modern mission stories from 23 Versacare Foundation supported ministries, compiled and edited by Céleste Perrino-Walker, was released in April 2019. The book was published in collaboration between Versacare Foundation and the Pacific Press Publishing Association. Because of the increasing financial pressures on traditional publishing houses, all proceeds from sales of Blessed Are They go to the Pacific Press in support of its mission serving the Seventh-day Adventist Church.