The Davie Community Foundation SURF Board awarded $12,212 in grants for youth-led projects to benefit the youth and children in Davie County.

SURF defines philanthropy with three Ts; giving Time, Talent and Treasure to make the community better.

“I am super proud of all of their hard work to raise the money, and their discernment as they heard grant requests, and made their decisions. I can’t wait to see the results from the completed projects.” said SURF Advisor Tami Daniel.

The following awards were made for 2016:

• Laura Cain, Davie High Hunger Fighters, $1,549: Laura’s project is Stockings for Schools which will provide 200 stockings filled with school supplies to low-income students at the high school and the three middle schools. This is the fourth year of this successful project. Laura hopes to expand this project into the elementary schools.

• Claire Devereaux, Davie High National Honor Society, $800: Claire’s project is to put the Davie High Recycling Program back into place for the EC students at the high school, so they can have their daily job back that was lost due to budget cuts. She will purchase bins for all of the buildings as well as create signs and provide instruction for student and faculty on their part of making the program successful.

• Clayton Foster, Bethlehen UMC Youth Group, $3,000: Clayton’s project is for a Bike Safety Day at the church for the children who live in a nearby mobile home park. They plan to give bike helmets and prepare a safety course for training for the children. They also want to introduce the children and their parents to local firefighters and law enforcement to introduce them as their friends and people they can count on. (The group requested $4,000, but SURF feels they can accomplish the goals with less.)

• Molly Hartness, Davie Hair Drive, $700: Molly is organizing a county-wide hair drive to gather ponytails to make wigs for cancer patients through Pantene Beautiful Lengths. Participation in this event has a direct impact on the girls of Davie County who serve others by donating their hair, as well as raising awareness for the cause.

• Ashton Mann, Smart Start of Davie County, $1,000: Ashton and Anna Jones requested money to purchase a computer for Smart Start’s early resource center. The computer will be used by Ashton and Anna to implement “Resource Mate,” a program to bar code and label all of the educational kits and materials that are available for local preschool families to check out. This will make the system much for efficient and user friendly. Ashton and Anna are volunteering their time this summer to set the program up, and educate the families on how to use it.

• Julia Vaughan-Jones, Davie High National Honor Society, $2,045: Julia’s project is Summer Bags for the Homeless. This is the second year for this project. They plan to provide 125 bags filled with toiletry items and age appropriate activities to entertain the homeless students over the summer. They also want to provide connections with free programs that are available to the students during the summer.

• Laurel Hecht, The STEM Juniors, $2,174: The STEM Juniors are a group of 11th grade STEM students at Davie County High School. They plan to purchase six gymnastics mats for Mocksville Elementary. The addition of new gymnastics mats to the Mocksville Elementary gymnasium will encourage students to maintain healthy lifestyles, while continuing the progress made by the Healthy, Fit and Strong program already implemented at the school.

• Callie Wisecarver and Bonnie Jo Taylor, Girl Scout Troop 2147, $944: Callie, Bonnie, and their Girl Scout Troop are creating Personal Care Bags for the abused children at the Dragonfly House. The bags will contain a comfort toy, toiletries, school supplies, snacks, some basic clothing  items, etc.