Two local teachers won grants of $2,500 each through a “Thank America’s Teachers” contest run by the Andrew Jewell Insurance Agency in Lynden.

Karen Rast is a librarian at Lynden Christian Elementary School. She will use the grant to buy books for beginning readers that help launch them into reading chapter books.

The other winner, Megan Thygesen, is a third-grade teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School in Bellingham. She will use the grant to purchase iPads for her classroom — currently 400 students share six iPads.

The two teachers won the most online votes from the public. The contest is modeled after the “Thank America’s Teachers” contest run by Farmer’s Insurance, which will award more than $1 million in grants to teachers this year.