After school and summer programs run by SEEDS Ecology & Education Centers, a Traverse City-based environmental nonprofit, will continue in rural school districts in northern Michigan after worries the federal funding wouldn’t be there.
The programs focus on environmental education and getting kids outside. In some schools, the SEEDS Ecoschools program is the only afterschool programs on offer, and in some communities, it is one of very few afterschool and summer childcare options.
The funding usually reaches the Michigan State agency that distributes it on July 1, but this year, it was frozen until early August.
SEEDS has received federal funding for after-school and summer programs since 2009.
“The relationships we have are partnerships that have been going on for a long time,” said SEEDS director Sarna Salzman, “and we’re interested in deepening that and increasing impact, not diminishing the services we get to offer.”
The $1.5 million grant goes to schools in Benzie, Fife Lake, Kaleva, Kalkaska, Marion and Mesick for the upcoming school year.
It comes from the federal Twenty-First Century Community Learning Centers program (21CCLC).
“If 21CCLC is not included in future budgets, our region could lose out on $4,140,000 between 2026 and 2029,” Salzman said in a press release.
“We already have a shortage of funding for education and lack of childcare in Northern Michigan, especially in the more rural areas. We hope that 21CCLC and other funding streams supporting out-of-school time enrichment for youth are added back into future federal and state budgets.”
It's still up in the air whether funding for 21CCLC programs will be included in the next Congressional budget.
Next year's funding, which had already been allocated by Congress, was part of a general freeze on Department of Education funding. But there was some bipartisan support for releasing it.
The freeze was lifted just one day after ten Republican senators penned a letter to the Trump administration emphasizing the importance of this kind of federal education funding that is allocated on the local level.
A senior administration official told ABC News that they had done a "programmatic review” of 21CCLC programs, and that “guardrails have been put in place to ensure these funds are not used in violation of Executive Orders,” but didn’t specify what those guardrails were.
