With budgets as tight as they are, schools across the nation are fighting for the chance for some extra funding. Seneca Street Elementary is one of those schools, competing for a chance to win grants for educational materials and books. Our Cara Thomas tells us what the community can do, to help this school bring home the grand prize.

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ONEIDA, N.Y. -- With a chance to win $60,000 in Follett products, textbooks, ebooks, and more, what school would turn down that opportunity? Not Seneca Street Elementary, who jumped on board the second they heard about the Follett Challenge.

Seneca Street Elementary School's librarian, Kalpana Lennox, said, "Follett, they're the company that we buy most of our books from and they happened to send this email out to say hey we have this grant coming up, would you like to apply for it?"

Principal Terri McCann said, "With the financial times right now in the schools, it's really nice to have an opportunity to go after additional resources that we might not otherwise get."

In order to apply, the school had to create a video showing how they bring innovation, creativity and collaboration to all the classrooms. The district rallied together and got the application and video done in no time.

Lennox said if they were to win, they may consider buying more ebooks.

She said, "Instead of purchasing 26 copies of a book because you want every single student looking at it, we just have to purchase 1 ebook. And you can have everybody in the classroom reading that same book."

The judges will determine five winners, receiving grants ranging from $15,000 - $60,000. They'll be judged based on the overall application and on the number of votes from the public.

The school has done all they can with students, parents, and faculty voting as much as possible. But to bring home that grant, Lennox says their going to need the community's help as well.

Lennox said, "We're doing really well. We're in third place considering we're a small school."

"Parents have been going out to businesses and they're contacting each other and there's emails that go out among the staff and the whole district every single day so whether or not we're successful with this, it's been a great experience," said McCann.

Voting for the Follett Challenge will be finishing up on Monday, March 18th.

To vote for Seneca Street Elementary's video, go to Follett Challenge.