Thanks to a pair of checks from a local credit union, two Dowagiac Union Schools teachers will be able to give their students an extra boost to their studies.

Dowagiac Choir Instructor Mary Alice Korth and Dowagiac Middle School English Denise Stockwell were the recipients of two of Honor Credit Union’s 2017 Back to School Teacher Award grants, worth $100 a piece. Janie Reifenberg, manager of Honor’s Dowagiac branch office, presented the checks to the educators last week.

The two were among 36 Michigan educators to receive money through the eighth annual Honor grant program, which provides money for teachers to use to purchase additional supplies or materials outside their annual budget.

“We had a tremendous number of submissions from Dowagiac teachers — more than in any of our other branches,” Reifenberg said.

Korth’s and Stockwell’s grant proposals were selected by a committee of local credit union employees, who could not decide which was stronger. Instead of choosing one over the other, the panel decided to recommend both submissions for the grant dollars, Reifenberg said.

Korth said she plans to use the grant to help cover the entry fees for a group of 20 male choir students to participate in a special, boys-only performance and workshop Tuesday at Andrews University. The group of singers will depart around noon to attend the all-day event, which is being led by Eugene Rogers, the associate director of choirs and associate professor of conducting at the University of Michigan.

Korth, who was hired earlier this year to replace longtime choir instructor Jeff Robinson, said her male choir students rarely get a chance to participate in special concerts such as Tuesday’s event, at least in comparison to their female counterparts. Given how one of Korth’s main priorities since taking over leadership of the vocal program has been to grow the number of boys participating in choir, she was leapt at the chance to give them this opportunity.

Thanks to the $100 contribution through Honor, Korth will be able to help cover the costs of the trip without having to solely rely on her budget.

“I’m really, really excited,” Korth said. “It will be nice to do something for the guys without sacrificing other things we can do the rest of the year.”

Stockwell, meanwhile, will use her $100 to purchase new books through Scholastic for her in-classroom library. She is looking to purchase new works ranging a wide gamut of genres, from poetry to historic fiction to informational books, as well as additional copies of titles that her students are requesting most, she said.

Stockwell currently has around 500 books in her classroom library, which she said gives her students a chance to pick-up books that may be unavailable through the school library.

Even in today’s era of e-readers and tablets, Stockwell said that many of her students still love to read paperback books, which studies suggest are a better form for reading comprehension than their digital counterparts.

“Students can learn a lot about life through fiction by seeing how a character behaves or does not behave,” Stockwell said.