Lillian Evans-Haywood
Last week in class, we were assigned the agency or organization that we would be partnering with to write a grant for this class and to possibly get money for this group. I was a little skeptical at the process for choosing who got which grants at first, but it made sense how they did it. In class, there were topics on the board that we had to choose our top three choices and then rank them. During class, I was so anxious to find out which agency I would be working with, seeing as I chose ones based on my familiarity with the topic. Was I going to be paired with an organization that I did not have any familiarity with if my choices were all filled up? Was I going to be paired with someone for the grant writing process that I didn’t know or I wasn’t going to work well with? I knew that I would just have to leave all of that up to the Assigning Committee, even though I knew that every decision was the right one.
When I got assigned to write this grant for Shenandoah Education Foundation (SEF), I was excited when I found out I had been assigned to SEF, and I'm definitely looking forward to starting. I have enjoyed working with schools and youth in the past, but I knew that this would be a challenge. I had never read or written a grant before, so I was glad that I also got paired with someone that I was familiar with and I knew that I worked well with her. The SEF believes that a great school comes from a great community and their purpose is to “enhance teaching and learning opportunities for students in Shenandoah County”. They applied for this grant through JMU in order to fund grants for their program. I did not totally understand that at first, but as I looked more into the numerous programs that they gave money to through their own grants, I appreciated them more. Now I am looking forward to working with this group to achieve the goal of having this grant go through.