Autauga County groups get share of $103,000 in education grants

Autauga County middle schoolers will be the first to see a direct change from one of the River Region’s newest education grants, with $3,000 set aside to expand STARBASE Advanced into every middle school in the county. The grant is part of more than $103,000 in education funding the Central Alabama Community Foundation awarded June 10 at the Britton YMCA, and Autauga County groups received a $15,000 slice of that total.

The Montgomery Education Foundation’s STARBASE expansion is the clearest classroom payoff in the local package. CACF describes STARBASE Advanced as an afterschool program for 6th- and 7th-graders, and prior grant-cycle descriptions say the curriculum has included drones, virtual and augmented reality, coding and robotics. Bringing it to every Autauga County middle school means students will see hands-on STEM enrichment outside the regular school day, before they reach high school and begin making course decisions that shape career paths.

Other Autauga-area money in the June cycle was aimed at programs that school budgets often leave underfunded. The Alabama Wildlife Federation received support for conservation education for Autauga County children, the Autauga County Family Support Center got money for evidence-based curriculum and training materials for four family programs, Girls on the Run South Central Alabama received help for a Title 1 school team, and the Liberty Learning Foundation was funded for Next Great American Tour resources. Together, those awards point to a mix of outdoor learning, family engagement, literacy and youth development rather than a single classroom purchase.

The local money moved through the Autauga Area Community Foundation, the county affiliate of CACF, which was established in 1996. CACF itself dates to 1987, when local civic leaders created the foundation to support nonprofits in the Montgomery area. The foundation says its grant cycles for CACF, AACF and the Elmore County Community Foundation open Jan. 2 and close Feb. 6, with education grants typically awarded in June and family, food and medical grants in May.

CACF says it distributes millions of dollars each year through hundreds of grants and scholarships, a scale that makes the June announcement one part of a much larger funding stream. In 2025, the foundation said it awarded more than $703,000 across its foundations in a year-end cycle, underscoring that the Autauga awards are part of an ongoing regional pipeline rather than a one-time windfall. For Autauga County families, the immediate impact will show up first in middle school STEM access, family-program support and youth enrichment that public dollars do not always cover.