2026 Community Giving Circle Winner: Bird & Urban Ecology Program

This year’s USD 232 Education Foundation Community Giving Circle Grant, in the amount of $10,000, was awarded to the USD 232 Bird and Urban Ecology Program.

Members of the Community Giving Circle each contributed $100 to attend this year’s Community Giving Circle, held on Tuesday, March 31, at StoneBriar Farm. Participants had the opportunity to hear three different grant proposals before voting to help decide which project would receive the pooled $10,000 grant. At the end of the evening, Brennan Flanagan’s Bird & Urban Ecology Program was named the winner!

On Wednesday morning, April 1, members of the Community Giving Circle surprised Mr. Flanagan at Mill Creek Middle School with the exciting news and a $10,000 check.

Bird & Urban Ecology Program

Brennan Flanagan, sixth grade social studies teacher at Middle Creek Middle School, applied for this grant to fund his USD 232 Bird and Urban Ecology Program. This program seeks to utilize wildlife monitoring and data collecting equipment to transform the outdoor spaces surrounding Mill Creek Middle School into living labs, empowering students to collect and analyze real ecological data while building hands-on science skills, scientific and data literacy, and long-term environmental stewardship. Using bird watching tools, wildlife cameras, habitat supports, and student-collected data, students become citizen scientists who study local ecosystems and share their findings with the USD 232 community. Rather than learning ecology only through textbooks, students engage in ongoing, outdoor investigation that makes science relevant, local, and meaningful.

Grant funds will purchase enough equipment for each middle school in the district to participate in future years if desired, allowing the program to go beyond the pilot year. A student-led Birdwatching and Ecology Club will also be formed, providing additional opportunities for interested students to engage before or after school and to take leadership roles in data collection and community outreach.

Congratulations to Mr. Flanagan for being the 2026 Community Giving Circle grand prize winner!

Thank you to all Community Giving Circle members who participated in this year’s event. It is because of the support of our community that the Education Foundation is able to empower educators and students across USD 232.