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Teach For America Awarded $500,000 ARC ARISE Grant to Expand Teacher Placement and Support Model in Region

Grant Will Support Teach For America’s Work in Eastern Kentucky, Northeast Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and West Virginia

October 29, 2024, Hazard, KY—Today, Teach For America Appalachia (TFA) was awarded $500,000 from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) for its new project, Strengthening the Talent Pipeline in Central Appalachia. The funding was made available through ARC’s Appalachian Regional Initiative for Stronger Economies (ARISE) which drives large-scale economic transformation through multi-state collaboration.

Teach For America Appalachia, along with partners in Eastern Kentucky, Northeast Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and West Virginia, will use the grant to deepen its partnership with Eastern Kentucky communities while exploring and expanding its footprint in rural regions of its neighboring states of Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Rosanna Ballinger, interim Executive Director of Teach For America Appalachia, shared her excitement for what this grant means for the organization’s work. “It has long been our goal to have a more even footprint across our Central Appalachian communities. Through this planning grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission, we will be able to invest the resources necessary to make these partnerships a reality,” said Ballinger. “We are so grateful to our partners in the respective Departments of Education who have already opened the doors to this kind of work and look forward to supporting more teachers across our four-state region in the coming years.”

The ARISE funding opportunity drives large-scale economic transformation through collaborative multi-state projects. Since January 2023, ARC has used funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to invest over $121.8 million in 46 ARISE projects that will strengthen Appalachian business and industry, as well as support the development of new economic opportunities across the region.

Currently, Teach For America Appalachia supports a network of 29 first- and second-year teachers, called corps members, who are leading classrooms in Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. TFA also engages community leaders and alumni of their program through their flagship programs, the Mountain Teacher Fellowship and the Central Appalachian Leadership Lab. All of TFA’s efforts are centered around their bold vision for impact: by 2030, twice as many students in Central Appalachian communities where TFA works will achieve postsecondary readiness and success, putting them on the path to economic mobility and a future filled with possibility.

Additional information about ARC’s ARISE funding opportunity for multi-state collaboration is available here.

About Teach For America Appalachia

Founded in 1990, Teach for America has grown from 500 corps members in 5 regions to over 70,000 leaders impacting education across the country. Teach For America has been operating in Central Appalachia since 2011, recruiting and training over 220 teachers who have been placed in schools across Central and Eastern Kentucky. During the 2024 – 2025 school year, we are supporting 29 corps members in rural Kentucky and West Virginia classrooms while also providing a level of support to our network of 320 alumni located across the four-state Teach For America Appalachia region. Our mission is to find, develop, and support equity-oriented leaders to transform education and expand opportunity for all children. Each day we work to create the change needed to ensure that all students in Central Appalachia have access to an outstanding education. Teach For America is a proud member of the AmeriCorps national service network. For more information, visit www.teachforamerica.org and follow us on Facebook and X.

Contact

Rachel Tennenbaum
(408) 250-2877
rachel.tennenbaum@teachforamerica.org
Teach For America

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