Wood ducks will get new “honeymoon” suites this spring thanks to a group of Anacortes High School AP environmental science students.

They plan to build and install 18 nest boxes at places like Pass Lake and in the Anacortes Community Forest Lands. Students will then monitor the ducks’ success at raising eggs and young over a period of at least three years.

The project, funded by the Anacortes Noon Kiwanis Club, is one of nearly 40 funded this year by local service groups through the district’s enrichment grant requests. The district has received $20,654 in grants—and several more thousand dollars are expected to come in. The funding pays for extras in the classroom that aren’t covered by the district, such as special projects, field trips, additional books for classroom libraries, art class scholarships and graphing calculators.

“We’ve never had so much money come in,” said Jayne Branch, district volunteer coordinator/resource development. “This is the year we really needed the funds the most and this is the year the clubs really stepped up to help.”

This year’s total is the highest since 2003, when the district started systematically asking service clubs to fund special requests at the start of the school year.

At the beginning of the school year teachers have about a month to make requests.

Service clubs used to give grants on an individual basis when teachers or schools requested it, Branch said. The district started sending a blanket request for enrichment grants in 2003.

This year, teachers submitted 53 requests totaling nearly $31,570.

Funded requests include:

- Anacortes High School—$837 for ceramics/glass design equipment, $1,000 for FIRST robotics competition and $240 for green diode lasers.

- Anacortes Middle School—$415 toward a classroom library, $729 for Adventures in Fitness PE curriculum and $1,000 for AlphaSmart keyboard replacement (they help students with specific fine motor disabilities or visual perception challenges).

- Fidalgo Elementary School—$960 for public library cards and $144 for helping primary students with delays in social behavior and social language.

- Island View Elementary School—$600 for accelerated reader books, $400 for document and digital cameras and $770 for VISTA family fun nights.

- Mount Erie Elementary School—$910 for graphing calculators, $181 for dissection pans and $260 for block play and manipulative materials for kindergartners.

- Whitney Early Childhood Education Center—$2,000 for Ready for Kindergarten family program, $600 for the VISTA family involvement program and $400 for books and interactive media for the community lending library.

- District-wide—$400 for After School Arts Program scholarships, $500 for after school strings and band scholarships and $450 an elementary level tribal field trip.

Funding this year has come from Soroptimist International of Anacortes, Anacortes Noon Kiwanis Club, noon and morning Rotary clubs, Anacortes Community and Youth Arts and Kiwanis Sunrisers. Funding is also expected from local Eagles, Elks and Lions clubs.

If you’re interested in donating, contact Branch at 293-1234.

Read more local news in the Skagit Valley Herald and the Anacortes American, or read it online in the E-edition