“Abbott Elementary” creator Quinta Brunson is channelling her inner Janine Teagues in her latest initiative. This week, Brunson launched “The Quinta Brunson Field Trip Fund.” In partnership with the School District of Philadelphia, the fund was created to provide free school trips for the city’s students.
“I’m proud to support Philadelphia students with experiences that remind them their dreams are valid and their futures are bright,” Brunson said in a statement to the Philadelphia Tribune.
Brunson, an alum of the Philadelphia school district, understands the importance of field trips in a student’s scholastic journey. And now with this fund, she plans to help eliminate the costs of field trips to Philadelphia’s museums and landmarks for more than 117,000 public school students.
In hopes of making learning “meaningful and memorable,” the fund will allow district school teachers and administrators to complete short applications for field trip grants, which will be evaluated by an independent group of educators, with funds dispersed twice a year, as reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“We are honored to partner with Quinta to expand these experiences for children in Philadelphia’s public schools, helping them to envision and realize any future they desire,” Kathryn Epps, president and CEO of the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia, told the outlet.
“[Field Trips] opened my world, sparked my creativity, and helped me imagine a future beyond what I saw every day,” Brunson added. “Going somewhere new shows you that the world is bigger and more exciting than you believe, and it can shape what you come to see as achievable.”
A proud Philadelphia native, Brunson has used her platform to not only spotlight the city but also the impact and struggles of many public school teachers face in her hit show, “Abbott Elementary.” In June, Brunson donated $25,000 to the school district’s Groceries for Good program to fight food insecurity amongst students. Similarly, earlier this year, the “Abbott Elementary” star was honored with a key to the city of Philadelphia at her old elementary school, which inspired the ABC sitcom.
Tony Watlington, Superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia, stressed the importance of Brunson’s work with the city school district in an interview with KYW News Radio: “What Quinta Brunson, our esteemed alum of the School District of Philadelphia, is doing is helping to eliminate all the barriers that impact whether or not our children can go on field trips. field trips, extend the learning inside the classroom to outside of the classroom, and vice versa. And so I’m really excited about this.”
“This commitment to equitably expanding opportunities for students to have experiences outside of their classroom will help accelerate student achievement, and we are becoming the fastest improving, large urban school district in the nation,” he added in a separate statement.
Donate to the Quinta Brunson Field Trip Fund here: https://form-renderer-app.donorperfect.io/give/fundsdp/fieldtripfund