photo by: Mike Yoder

Deerfield Elementary School fifth-graders Maeve O'Lear, left, and Ella Schenkel practice ukuleles during music class Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016 at the Lawrence school. Music teacher Sara Bonner received a classroom set of 24 ukuleles from a grant from the Lawrence Schools Foundation. This is the first year students have practiced with the instrument.

The sounds of African drums, ukuleles and handbells aren’t necessarily what one would expect to hear coming from public school music classrooms, but Lawrence Schools Foundation grants are helping teachers begin and maintain such options.

“A lot of these music teachers are starting to really think outside of the box, and that’s a neat factor,” said Dena Johnston, executive director of the foundation. “They’re incorporating it into their classrooms and kids have opportunities that maybe they wouldn’t have elsewhere.”

This year’s MusicWorks! grants will fund a variety of activities in the Lawrence school district’s music programs, such as African drums for high school choirs, ukulele cases so Deerfield Elementary students can take the instruments home to practice, and materials to support Cordley Elementary’s handbell choir.

“It’s not to replace, but it’s to enhance and enrich the music education in the schools,” Johnston said.

The grants are part of the Lawrence Schools Foundation’s Music Endowment, which supports enhancements to music education in the Lawrence district. The foundation is a charity organization benefiting a variety of educational programs, student scholarships and teacher awards within the district.

Deerfield’s ukulele program, for example, has been supported in large part by the foundation. It began with just a few of the instruments two years ago, but the MusicWorks! grant enabled the school’s music teacher to purchase additional ukuleles in order to have a classroom set of 30.

For the upcoming school year, the program will fund eight proposals from music teachers across the district, many of which collaborated in programming that will benefit students at multiple schools. In all, the proposals total about $7,400.

Johnston said that grant requests and funding for the program have been growing in tandem the past few years. For example, the total amount awarded this year is nearly double the amount awarded in 2013. Johnston said she thinks the increase could be due in part to more awareness, but also state funding that hasn’t kept up with an interest in a wider variety of instruments and programming.

“It’s been interesting to see the funding and the funding gaps,” Johnston said. “And unfortunately sometimes things like African drums or ukuleles or other programs — they’re great, they’re innovative, they’re captive and they really can tie into the curriculum and learning for kids — but it’s not on the core list of what would be funded in a choral or music program.”

The foundation has awarded the MusicWorks! grants since 2006. The program was established with the support of Robert and Katherine Dinsdale, and has also included community support and funding throughout the years.

The grants will be awarded this summer for use during the 2016-2017 school year.