As part of its efforts to support education and skills in Louisiana, renewable energy company Drax is donating $5,000 to the West Baton Rouge (WBR) Foundation’s classroom grants program. The funds will be used to develop new, creative learning activities for the students across six different schools.
“Many of our teachers have creative and innovative ideas for student projects but lack the funding to bring it to life,” said Jarja Carville, Director of the WBR Foundation. “Our WBR Foundation is grateful for this donation from Drax which will allow our teachers to get the tools they need to be successful.”.
The schools that were awarded grants include: Caneview K-8 School, Port Allen Elementary School, Holy Family School, Brusly Elementary School, Brusly Middle School and Brusly High School.
“With the latest grant, I plan to acquire a lift bus, so that students in wheelchairs can join us on the eight community outings and activities planned for the school year that allow our students to learn outside of the classroom,” said Gale Jones, Brusly High School special education teacher. “We are so excited to acquire the lift bus, and we are very thankful to Drax and the WBR Foundation for continuing to assist us in our educational, life-skills adventures.”
Brusly Middle School is part of a district that enables schools to have a digital library program where students use their Chromebooks to borrow and read library books.
“This grant will allow the school to purchase multi-user books that will be permanently available in our digital library,” said Dianne Palermo, Brusly Middle School librarian and teacher. “This grant offers us new opportunities to make reading easier and more accessible for our students.”
BMS Dianne Palermo: Brusly Middle School teacher and librarian Dianne Palermo.
Drax has supported a variety of educational programs in Louisiana through donations that helped communities impacted by natural disasters and COVID-19. The support has included Hurricane Ida relief efforts, an environmental education workshop for teachers, a Classroom of the Month program and the United Way’s ‘Pen Friends’ program.
Contact Information:
Alex Schott
VP, North America Communications
318-372-4091
[email protected]
About Drax
Drax Group’s purpose is to enable a zero carbon, lower cost energy future and in 2019 announced a world-leading ambition to be carbon negative by 2030, using bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) technology.
Drax’s around 3,000 employees operate across three principal areas of activity – electricity generation, electricity sales to business customers and compressed wood pellet production and supply to third parties. For more information visit https://www.drax.com/us
Power generation:
Drax owns and operates a portfolio of renewable electricity generation assets in England and Scotland. The assets include the UK’s largest power station, based at Selby, North Yorkshire, which supplies five percent of the country’s electricity needs.
Having converted Drax Power Station to use sustainable biomass instead of coal, it has become the UK’s biggest renewable power generator and the largest decarbonization project in Europe. It is also where Drax is piloting the groundbreaking negative emissions technology BECCS within its CCUS (Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage) Incubation Area.
Its pumped storage, hydro, and energy from waste assets in Scotland include Cruachan Power Station – a flexible pumped storage facility within the hollowed-out mountain Ben Cruachan.
The Group also aims to build on its BECCS innovation at Drax Power Station with a target to deliver four million tons of negative CO2 emissions each year from new-build BECCS outside of the UK by 2030 and is currently developing models for North American and European markets.
Pellet production and supply:
The Group has 19 operational pellet plants and developments with nameplate production capacity of around five million tons a year.
Drax is targeting eight million tons of production capacity by 2030, which will require the development of over three million tons of new biomass pellet production capacity. The pellets are produced using materials sourced from sustainably managed working forests and are supplied to third party customers in Europe and Asia for the generation of renewable power.
Drax’s pellet plants supply biomass used at its own power station in North Yorkshire, England to generate flexible, renewable power for the UK’s homes and businesses, and also to customers in Europe and Asia.
