Licking County teachers visit Italy, Tanzania, Ireland, Kenya through grant program

Ellie Owen, TheReportingProject.org 

If you were given a grant to travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

For four of the thirteen grant recipients of the 2024 Tibbie Leslie Travel Grant, the choices were clear: Italy, Tanzania, Ireland and Kenya.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the travel grant, established by longtime Licking County educator Elizabeth “Tibbie” Leslie. Since the grant was first awarded in 1999, the fund has provided more than $200,000 for more than 100 educator trips, and is administered by the Licking County Foundation in downtown Newark.

Leslie was a lifelong physical education educator and Newark native with a passion for travel. She established this grant with the hopes that teachers in Licking County would be able to travel and learn more about teaching while abroad.

“It’s an honor to be a stewardess of Tibbie’s Vision,” said Amy Dell, the program officer for education and scholarships at the Licking County Foundation.

The four educators — Kellie Cannon, Lauren Skaggs, Leona Vrbanac and Nicole Tucker — traveled in June, shortly after the school year ended. They all filled out an application in early 2024 where they explained why they wanted to visit their desired location and what they would be able to bring back to the classroom.

Licking Valley's Kellie Cannon taps into family roots in Italy

Kellie Cannon was driving home one day and passed a cemetery where she saw a grave with her Italian family’s surname on it. It inspired her to look into her family history and she discovered through Facebook that she had cousins living in Sicily.

Cannon, an art teacher at Licking Valley Intermediate School who has been teaching for 16 years, traveled to Italy with her mom and sister. And while she was there, she was able to meet up with her cousin in Florence.

Cannon visited Naples, Pompeii, Sorenti, Capri, Rome, Asisi, Pisa, Florence, Venice and Murano.

“Italy is like the epicenter for an art teacher to learn everything,” she said.

Lauren Skaggs learned Swahili while Tanzania to connect better with Licking Heights' English language learner students

“Traveling and service are my two number one priorities in life other than my teaching job, so all three of those were able to fit into one trip,” said Lauren Skaggs, a fourth-grade teacher in the Licking Heights Local School District, about her trip to Tanzania.

Skaggs went with International Volunteers HQ (IVHQ).

She liked the childcare program that they offered as part of their Tanzania trip and was eager to see how schools were different there, as well as enjoy the natural beauty of the region.

“I’m a big outdoor, nature person and I wanted to be somewhere, while I’m in Africa, where I could go on safari as well,” Skaggs said.

She learned a little bit of Swahili while in Tanzania, which was exciting for her since some of her students at Broad Peak Elementary School speak the language. Previously, Skaggs would greet her students by saying ‘good morning’ in Swahili, but she couldn’t say much else.

“A lot of my students are from surrounding countries,” Skaggs said. “Now, I can reference it more with a little bit more understanding of it.”

Since 2016, the Licking Heights Local School District has gained nearly 700 English language learning (ELL) students, and about one in five students in the district are enrolled in ELL classes.

Newark's Leona Vrbanac visited sheep farms, met a lace maker in Ireland

Leona Vrbanac teaches family consumer science at Newark High School. She went to Ireland for the 25th World Congress of the International Federation of Home Economics, which she’s been a member of for many years.

Beforehand, she embarked on a pre-conference tour that included visits to sheep farms, a sustainable fiber tour, spinning classes and meeting a lace maker.

She had the opportunity to learn a lot more about wool from visiting the sheep farms and discovered ways to integrate wool and felt into her sustainable design classes.

“I just think [Leslie] — in the ‘50s, how unprecedented she would have been as a woman to travel the world and feel so connected to people,” Vrbanac said.

This is Vrbanac’s second time receiving the grant. In 2019, she used grant funds to travel to Italy, where she took a week-long cooking class and learned about how to cook with ancient grain. She brought that knowledge — and a recipe for delicious cookies — back to her students.

“I really want my students in high school to feel like they have a place at the table, that they’re heard at the table, that they’re learning the skills they need to nourish themselves and their families,” she said.

Johnstown-Monroe teacher Nicole Tucker inspired to sponsor teachers after Kenya trip

Nicole Tucker, a fifth-grade math teacher in the Johnstown-Monroe School District, traveled to Kenya with Committed Believers Evangelical Ministry (CBEM).

Her first goal while on the trip was to get into a classroom and experience how the teachers work with their students.

The schools she visited lacked resources. One of them didn’t have walls. They didn’t have electricity, water or even proper flooring.

CBEM partnered with Jersey Church, which helped to build a better structure for the classroom. And CBEM also worked with Living Water of Ohio to provide water to these schools. This summer, gutters and a water tank are being constructed for one of the schools.

After the trip, Tucker floated the idea of sponsoring a teacher from one of the schools with her husband, who works for Living Water of Ohio. She recognized how little resources they had after seeing them teach the curriculum from their phones and learning that they were all volunteers.

“As a teacher, if I sponsor another teacher then that teacher can impact an entire classroom and that can affect an entire community and I got really excited about that idea,” she said.

How to apply for a Tibbie Leslie Travel Grant

Applications for 2025 are already open and allow for teachers to propose any type of travel experience they want. LCF prioritizes new applicants and teachers that teach in the Newark City School system, since Tibbie graduated from Newark High School and felt a strong connection to the community.

“The ability to get out of the continental U.S. is something that I think has a tremendous amount of value, no matter what your role in life is,” Dell said.

Ellie Owen writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers.