Baseball World Champion Brandon Crawford and Wells Fargo present $100,000 in education grants at AT&T Park

Leadership+teacher+Brad+Burzynski%2C+Principal+Sheila+Smith+and+Special+Education+teacher+Michelle+Bolden++%283rd%2C+4th+and+5th+from+left%29+are+joined+by+others+to+accept+the+grant+from+Wells+Fargo.

Leadership teacher Brad Burzynski, Principal Sheila Smith and Special Education teacher Michelle Bolden (3rd, 4th and 5th from left) are joined by others to accept the grant from Wells Fargo.

On Wednesday, November 29, World Champion Brandon Crawford and Jim Foley, EVP and president of Wells Fargo’s Pacific North region presented checks to recipients of the KNBR Step Up to the Plate for Education grants program funded by Wells Fargo at AT&T Park. Through an open nomination process, schools applied to receive grants and winners were selected. Thirty-one Bay Area schools received $100,000 in grants to support their sports, musical, art and education programs.

“Wells Fargo is proud to support educational and athletic programs that will play a role in preparing our youth to be successful adults,” said Mr. Foley. “When students and communities prosper, we all benefit.”

Professional baseball player Crawford spoke to the grant winners about the power of education: “As a kid, my parents always emphasized the importance of an education—above and beyond participating in sports. As a Bay Area native, it is an honor to be part of a program that increases education and athletic programs for local kids.”

Wells Fargo invests in communities where its team members and customers live and work and is a top corporate philanthropist in the greater Bay Area. Wells Fargo and KNBR have distributed over $1.1 million through the Step Up to the Plate program to support the Bay Area’s youth over the past fifteen years.

Representatives from schools attended the event to receive the grants. Armijo received $3,000 “To host a Special Olympic Track and Field day for special education students (middle school and high school),” according to Wells Fargo spokesperson Edith Rocio Robles, Assistant Vice President of Corporate Communications for the Bay Area. Other schools received grant money for such diverse purposes as purchasing tech tools for the classrooms, travel, training and supplies for art and physical education classes. Grants ranged from $1,000 to $5,016.50 and the total donated was $100,000, distributed to 31 schools. The other school in the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District (FSUSD) that received a grant was Crystal Middle School in Suisun ($2500 to purchase a set of GPS-enabled watches and a starter’s pistol for the school cross country team).