Addition Financial Surprises 2024 Renovate to Educate Winners

Teachers at four Central Florida public schools will barely recognize their teaching space in a few months, after learning they’ve been selected to receive dream classroom makeovers thanks to Addition Financial Credit Union’s Renovate to Educate program.

Addition Financial selected the winning classrooms from more than 250 essays submitted by educators in Orange, Osceola, Seminole, and Lake counties. In February, the credit union and school district officials teamed up to make surprise visits to each winning classroom to let the teachers know they won.

This year’s winners are:

• Mickeya Harris, 3rd grade teacher at Palmetto Elementary School in Orlando
  
  
• Pamela Batlemento, school psychologist in a kindergarten-first grade trauma center classroom at Neptune Elementary School in St. Cloud
  
  
• Brianna Balch, teaches deaf and hard of hearing students in Pre-K to 2^nd grade at Altamonte Elementary School, in Altamonte Springs
  
  
• Morgan Hebner, 5^th grade teacher at Sorrento Elementary school in Sorrento

Through their sixth annual Renovate to Educate Contest, Addition Financial will work with the winning educators and Seminole State College’s Interior design program to plan and then complete the classroom makeovers, providing renovations of roughly $3,500 per classroom. The finished classrooms will be unveiled over the summer, just before teachers report for the 2024-2025 school year.