Gwinnett County Public Library (GCPL) has been selected for a majornational grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, one of the country’s oldest and most influential philanthropic institutions. The grant is for $350,000.
GCPL will use the funds to expand English language classes, working in partnership with Gwinnett County Public Schools. It will increase the number of free English classes and recruit community volunteers (who pass background checks) to support English language learners. Stipends for volunteer English teachers and bus passes for program participants will be available.
Gwinnett County Public Library is one of just 11 libraries nationwide chosen through the Libraries as Pillars of Education and Democracy initiative, which aims to help public libraries expand access to adult literacy and college readiness programs.Fluency in the English language is essential for everyone to participate in American society, culture, politics, and business.
Charles Pace, executive director of Gwinnett County Public Library, says: “We are delighted that the Carnegie Corporation has recognized the importance of English language classes and libraries in general to maintain a literate and engaged citizenry.
Thanks to this generous award we will be able to better support the English language learner needs of the Gwinnett Community than ever before.”
Carnegie has been one of the largest philanthropic funders of libraries, from the early construction of almost 1,700 libraries in the U.S. to helping establish the endowment of the American Library Association, funding the nation’s first graduate library school, and digitizing archival collections around the world.
Gwinnett gets grants for local accountability courts
Gwinnett will receive seven grants from the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council to continue supporting local accountability courts in Superior, State and Juvenile Court. The programs serve residents navigating substance use, mental health challenges and recovery.
The funding, totaling more than $911,000, will go toward treatment services, drug testing supplies, training and personnel. Each grant includes a 15 percent in-kind local match, covered through existing staff salaries.
Programs supported by this funding include:
- Adult Drug Court: Celebrating its 20th year, the program has 134 participants and 492 graduates.
- DUI Court: Also marking two decades, this program has 55 participants and 770 graduates.
- Mental Health Court: In operation since 2013, the court has 29 participants and 112 graduates.
- Veterans’ Treatment Court (Superior Court): Ten years strong, this program has 11 participants and 44 graduates.
- Veterans’ Intervention Program (State Court): Certified in 2019, the court currently serves six participants.
- Juvenile Drug Court & Behavioral Health Court: These two programs serve a combined 12 participants.
- Juvenile Family Treatment Court: Launched in 2020, the court has six active participants and four graduates.
GGC students have project with NASA Minds program
At least for now, only a select few have the chance to travel to space and explore. At Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC), a team of students designed Dynamic Objective Reaching Autonomous Rovers (DORA), which may someday be useful in surveying the moon’s landscape. DOR, along with its two, small swarm rovers, can collect information about the moon’s physical features, landmarks and environmental conditions autonomously. The data collected can then be used to help create detailed maps of the lunar surface, which saves the astronauts’ time and resources.
It’s all part of the NASA Minority University Research and Education Project Innovative New Designs for Space program, more commonly called NASA MINDS.
A team of five GGC students, senior Ewura Ama Awere, sophomores Shone Cherian and Jennifer Jimenez-Hernandez, and freshmen Tamera Crawford and Anthony Damian, collaborated on DORA. This year, DORA was not only accepted and funded by NASA MINDS, but it also opened the door for the students to be interviewed by NASA.
Shomore Shone Cherian, who is majoring in information technology, says: “Being interviewed by NASA felt like a full-circle moment. I couldn’t help but reflect on our first NASA MINDS experience and how far we had come since then. It was incredibly validating and meaningful to share the progress we made. I saw the interview as a moment of closure and growth.”
Senior Ewura Ama Awere feels: “After our final presentation, the NASA judges and subject matter experts gave encouraging feedback and thoughtful suggestions for future development. I’m grateful our hard work led to that opportunity, and I hope we’ll continue learning from these supporters to improve our process, research and impact in this field.”
The process of being accepted is rigorous. Dr. Sairam Tangirala, professor of physics, says: “The application is quite involved. It requires not only a budget and a second, detailed application, but also a preliminary design review that was over 20 pages, and a systems engineering paper that was nearly 30 pages.”
GGC’s team competed against other colleges and universities nationwide and earned a second place in the poster category for DORA. At GGC, the team also won Best Poster in the Physics, Math, Computer Science, Engineering & Technology Category at the at the 2025 Georgia Academy of Science Conference for their project, “Mapping the Moon’s Surface using Project DORA: Dynamic Objective-Reaching Autonomous Rovers.”
GGC’s participation in NASA MINDS began in 2019. Dr. Tae Song Lee, associate professor of physics, mentored the team. The purpose of participating not only gives students the experience, but also opportunities.
Farias promoted at Oconee State Bank
Jenny Farias, now of Buford, has been promoted as financial center manager for the Gwinnett Market at Oconee State Bank, effective immediately. She is a 10 year employee of the bank. She previously served the Watkinsville market, where she served as assistant financial manager.
She will be leading the Gwinnett retail banking team, including Faith Knox and Sidney Ford.
Farias is a native of Gwinnett, and the oldest of nine children. She is a graduate of Winder Barrow High and has a business administration certificate from Lanier Tech. Her son, Joel, of Athens, recently graduated from Oconee High School and is employed by Caterpillar.
