Manchester's Ridgeway School Receives Makerspace Equipment

MANCHESTER, NJ -- Ridgeway Elementary School now has a brand new Makerspace thanks to a $350 mini-grant from the Manchester Township Educational Foundation, the district announced Wednesday.

A Makerspace is a creative, do-it-yourself space with equipment and materials that give people an opportunity to create, invent and learn.

Tony Bruzaitis presented the donation made in memory of his parents, Ella and Anthony Bruzaitis. The Makerspace donated to Ridgeway School, which Bruzaitis attended as a child, has an emphasis on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math).

Bruzaitis had the opportunity to try out some of the Makerspace materials with a few very enthusiastic students from the school’s gifted and talented program. The equipment included Lego building bricks, Lego Contraptions and Chain Reactions kits, a Qubits building kit, a Wheels & Axles engineering kit, a Makey Makey electronics kit, and a Design Studio game, the release said.

Ridgeway School Principal Nikki Mazur said she is excited about the donation and what it will mean to the students.

“We are so grateful to the MTEF and the Bruzaitis family for helping us to create our own Makerspace,” she said.

The Makerspace will be located in a corner of the school’s computer lab and will to be available to all classes, and possibly even after-school programs. Mazur said she hopes to have the teachers try out the equipment first to learn how to help guide their students.

Bruzaitis’s father, Anthony Bruzaitis, was instrumental in the building of the original Ridgeway School, which was called Manchester Elementary School at the time. He was on the Board of Education and also was mayor of Manchester in the late 1950s and early ’60s. Ella Bruzaitis was highly involved in the PTA and Ridgeway Civic Club.

Manchester Township Educational Foundation is a nonprofit organization that supports the students of Manchester Township Public Schools with classroom grants, scholarships and more. To learn more, visit www.mtef4kids.org.

(Photos: Ridgeway School Principal Nikki Mazur and students accept Makerspace grant materials from Tony Bruzaitis, who made the donation in memory of his parents through the Manchester Township Educational Foundation. Ridgeway students Maya Bachonski, Brian Test and Ashlyn Martin try out some of the new Makerspace materials.)