Tuesday night’s Beaufort County Board of Education meeting was one of celebration for three area schools.

At the meeting, Assistant Superintendent Mark Doane presented the projects that were awarded Bright Ideas grant money earlier this year — a total of $4,481.65 — at Chocowinity Middle, Washington High and P.S. Jones Middle schools.

The projects included: “Get Your Move On: Couch to 5K,” a project to help sixth-graders at Chocowinity Middle train for a 5K; “Sit, Stand, Move and Learn,” which provides stand-up desks for “fidgety” students at Chocowinity Middle; “How to Start a Business Going Green,” which will help P.S. Jones students learn about starting and growing a business through gardening; and “Urban Raised Bed Garden,” which will allow Washington High students to maintain three raised-bed gardens and sell the produce to local food banks.

The Bright Ideas Grant Program was established 22 years ago by North Carolina’s electric cooperatives “to support innovative, creative and effective classroom initiatives that are not covered by traditional school funding,” according to the Tideland Electric Membership Corp. website.

To apply for Tideland EMC’s portion of the grant money, schools must be grades kindergarten through 12, public or private, and be located in Dare, Craven, Pamlico, Washington, Hyde, Beaufort or Tyrrell counties. This year’s application deadline was set for Sept. 23, and applications for next year are already being accepted.

According to Tideland EMC’s website, the electric cooperatives across the state have given a total of $9.6 million to different projects since the program’s inception.

Heidi Smith, program coordinator for Tideland EMC, said the money is meant to go to teachers who have had to fund projects out of their own pockets.

She said the grants ranged from less than $200 and up to $2,000.

“That’s why the grants aren’t particularly large,” Smith said. “We really just wanted to reward innovation on the teacher’s part and provide learning incentives that would excite the students about learning.”