Pencil Foundation

Pencil partners are businesses and organizations committed to student success through organized, coordinated activities that match the unique attributes of each partner with the specific needs of each school or academy. By leveraging our wide network of business contacts and comprehensive knowledge of nashville schools, Pencil connects businesses and schools in customized, meaningful ways that directly help metro students achieve success in school and in life. We manage these relationships by facilitating communication, providing activity ideas, supporting volunteer management, and helping the school and partner develop a year-long action plan. In fy24, Pencil engaged 580 partners in this work. In addition, Pencil hosts the pencilmein615.org website where schools, partners, and individuals log their volunteer hours and in-kind gifts. We continued to grow Pencil connect, an online platform where community members can register for school-based service opportunities that celebrate students, demonstrate appreciation for teachers, and engage families, as well as connect industry experts to students for career exploration experiences. In fy24, Pencil utilized Pencil connect to recruit 199 individuals to support 188 unique volunteer experiences at 57 mnps schools.

Grants to mnps - Pencil continues to be a grantmaking partner to mnps by passing-through significant funds that support the accelerating scholars initiative and its focus on studentacademic growth. For example, in fy24, pencil-managed tutors provided 5,087 students in grades 1-3 with high-impact literacy tutoring. In addition, Pencil was chosen to act as financial fiduciary for reimagining community spaces in mnps elementary schools, a public-private partnership created to support the expansion of certain community spaces within lakeview elementary, paragon mills elementary and percy priest elementary schools. Our grantmaking partnership work will continue to evolve as we support the strategic plan of mnps by recruiting financial resources to support key initiatives that directly and positively impact students.

The dg Pencil box exists to remove barriers to learning for metro students by ensuring classrooms are stocked with necessary supplies and so educators don't have to spend their own funds on supplies. Through generous donations from businesses, organizations and individuals, the box is stocked with items such as pencils, pens, notebooks, crayons, scissors, reading books, manipulatives, backpacks and much more. Every mnps educator is invited to shop once a month at our west nashville location throughout the school year. In addition, Pencil staff and volunteers provide broad educator access to supplies through direct-to-school deliveries, pop-ups, giveaways, and large-scale teacher appreciation projects including together 4 teachers and thanks a million. The lp steam lending library, part of the dg Pencil box program, aims to provide elementary and middle school students with equitable access to steam resources. In fy24, Pencil distributed $2.91m in free product to educators and provided 7,033 metro students in 29 schools access to high-quality, hands on steam learning materials through our lending library.