Seymour High School has been awarded a $15,000 grant by the Gene Haas Foundation.

Principal Greg Prange asked board members to approve acceptance of the grant during a recent Seymour Community School Corp. board of education meeting, and they gave unanimous approval.

Jeremy Wischmeier, an engineering and technology teacher at the high school, applied for the grant.

The primary goal of the scholarship grant program is to build skills in the manufacturing industry by providing scholarships for CNC machinist training and CNC machining-based engineering programs and support of FIRST Robotics teams.

Also, $2,500 of those funds can be used for sponsorship to participate in selected competitions that highlight a school’s manufacturing/engineering program.

Eligible competitions showcase manufacturing and CNC machining skills, such as FIRST, NRL, Botsi IQ and Skills CNC competitions; school racing programs, such as SAE, Shell ECO and Solar Car challenges; and other robotics competitions.

Scholarship funds may be used for tuition, books and small personal tools that are required by the program, and recommended scholarship amounts are from $500 to $2,500 per student.

The Gene Haas Foundation funds cannot be used for individual student manufacturing industry credentials, and resources, accreditation and workshops are not authorized expenditures of scholarship grant funds. Credentialing costs are not eligible usages of grant funds, either.

Katrina Veronica, grants administrator and communications lead for the foundation, said funds also cannot be used for any product Haas Automation manufactures or sells.

“If you choose to award a scholarship of tooling to your students, please present them with the required items clearly marked as a gift from the Gene Haas Foundation,” Veronica said. “This gift for students is to keep when graduating from the program.”

Up to $200 can be used for stickers from the scholarship eligible category on the Gene Haas Pro Shop for scholarship certificates and tooling package labeling.

Schools do not request a specific amount of funding. All grant requests are reviewed, and the budgeted annual funds are divided into all of the eligible programs.

Grants can vary annually depending on the budgeted funds and the number of programs applying. Information uploaded that is relevant to a program’s pipeline building and creativity of the program will help a program be funded.

Each awarded school has two school years from the award date to award scholarships and may apply every year.