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Brittany Hollas, once a teacher, knows how difficult it can be to purchase items for projects in the classroom.

Hollas is now working to help teachers by applying for grants and raising money to fund "Grants for Great Ideas."

She is the executive director of the Victoria Independent School District Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization.

"Being an innovative teacher on a tight budget is tough," Hollas said.

The aim of the foundation, formally called Making the Grade-Victoria, is to mobilize community resources and invest them in improving student achievement, she said.

"We garner donations and invest them in ways that will improve the quality of teaching and learning," Hollas said.

The program was introduced to school district employees in August to help collect donations for the foundation.

The foundation board is now soliciting lead gifts before launching a community-wide fund-raising campaign.

The money raised will be used to fund the grants that teachers apply for to support their projects.

"These grants will help teachers to fund their new ideas and projects that are not already being paid for with tax dollars," she said.

Several grants of up to $1,000 each will be distributed in the spring to teachers approved for the grant. The foundation hopes to grow the number and size of those grants as donations increase.

All teacher applications must be in the foundation office by 5 p.m. Dec. 18. The first recipients will be awarded sometime after the first of the year, Hollas said.

The purpose of the foundation is to help forge better relationships between a school district and its community, said Randy Price, president of the foundation's board of directors.

"The foundation is a great way for the community of Victoria to be active and involved, especially as the district is making enhancements to better prepare youth for their futures," he said.

Victoria is not the only district that has an education foundation. Cuero and Goliad school districts also have foundations set up to help their teachers and students.

For the 2007-2008 school year the Cuero Education Foundation was able to award 19 grants totaling $52,061.49, according to the organization's Web site.

One of the 19 grants was the Gobbler Tube for students at all campuses for $4,373.85 and will provide on-demand training videos created by teachers and local staff personnel to students in grade pre-kindergarten to 12.

"Foundations complement the efforts of a school district by helping to create synergy and community excitement about what's taking place in the classroom," VISD Superintendent Bob Moore said in a news release. "Such involvement promotes morale, student attendance and graduation rates, parent involvement and teacher recruitment and retention, to name a few."