DIXFIELD – Administration officials at SAD 21 in Dixfield and SAD 43 in Rumford were ecstatic Friday.

U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins announced Thursday that SAD 21 had won a $484,228 federal grant. It was a joint collaboration between SAD 21 and neighboring SAD 43, said SAD 21 Superintendent Thomas Ward.

“It was one heck of a grant,” Ward said Friday of the five-year funding award by the U.S. Department of Education through its Physical Education Program.

In a joint statement, Snowe and Collins said Thursday that the grant would help students eat healthy and exercise.

“Recent studies have shown that childhood and adolescent obesity is a real health and social problem for too many students,” the senators said in a press release.

“Schools can make a big impact in students lives by teaching their students about healthy lifestyles and good nutrition, and by giving them access to fitness programs that work.”

Ward and Gloria Jenkins, SAD 43’s director of curriculum, both echoed that statement, saying the grant would help the two districts provide year-round fun and fitness programs.

“It will be fun working with SAD 43. That’s going to be great,” Ward said.

Now, he said, both districts could now purchase fitness equipment like climbing walls, bouldering walls, nordic and downhill skis, snowshoes and other sports-related equipment.

“We can now buy all the good things that a school district can’t financially support,” Ward said.

Things like all the accouterments of a weight lifting room, Jenkins added.

“We were ecstatic today, because this offers so many opportunities,” she said.

A Maine Department of Education study stated that 10 percent of Maine adolescents and 15.5 percent of children were overweight or obese in 2001, up from 5 percent in 1980.

The Physical Education Program grant is to help SAD 21 and SAD 43 initiate, expand, or improve physical education programs for students in grades K-12.

“This is just tremendous for this area,” Ward said.

He heaped loads of praise on grant writers Laurie Soucy, SAD 21’s wellness director, and Kathy Sutton, SAD 43’s school health coordinator.

“Out of a possible 230 points to win the grant, we scored 224! To score that high is outstanding. They both did a tremendous amount of work and deserve a lot of credit,” Ward said.

Additionally Thursday, a staff member from Snowe’s office contacted Ward, telling him that SAD 21 had won $142,000 in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Mentoring Program.

The Mentoring Program promotes interaction with children by encouraging support and guidance from a mentor, to improve a child’s academic performance and interpersonal relationships.

The program further seeks to reduce student dropout rates and to reduce juvenile delinquency and involvement in gangs.

Ward said that Dirigo Middle School Principal Thomas Starratt wrote the mentoring grant.

The two federal grants complement a three-year, $384,330 enrichment grant from the state which SAD 21 won in mid-August.

That funding, a 21st Century Community Learning Center Grant, is to provide a variety of remedial and enrichment programs for students and parents of SAD 21’s four schools and Peru Elementary School.

The money is to implement a comprehensive after-school program and summer school program.