GIVE Team mini-service grants aid volunteers

Inspire By Example mini-service grants have been sponsored by the GCSU GIVE Center and Student Government Association for the past two years, with the aim of continuing to grow to be a help to student volunteers.

Lyric Burnett, a senior mass communication student, is service leader for this year’s GIVE Team, which is in charge of distribution of the grants.

“The grant is $100 for a student or student group for a service project,” Burnett said.

The money for the grants is given to the GIVE Team by SGA out of leftover funds. Fifty grants will be distributed this school year, with half given in the fall and half in the spring. There are no deadlines on applications for grants, as students can apply at any time.

However there is one thing that students must have, according to Burnett, before they turn in their applications.

“They’ll have to have a plan. Everything has to be kind of put together before they would come and apply,” Burnett said.

Within a week after applications are turned in, students should be contacted to set up a time for presenting their plan. The students must present to a board of three to five members of the GIVE Team. After the presentation, the members are able to ask any questions of the presenters that may be able to help fill in holes about the proposal.

Within 24 hours after their presentation, the students are told of their approval status.

After being approved, the students must document their work by taking pictures of their project and itemizing the receipts of what was purchased with the grant money. They need to have a written debriefing about the completion of their project.

The process of getting a grant is not as difficult as one would imagine it to be. If an organization is serious about volunteering, it should look into how it can use a grant to help its cause as others have done.

“Eleven grants were awarded in the last two years,” Burnett said.

Megan McGuire, a junior early childhood education major and member of the GIVE Team, became familiar with the organization after spending time in the GIVE Center with her duties as a service leader for Survivor Buddies, a volunteering organization to help people with cancer.

One of the grants given went to Survivor Buddies to help with its project called Patches.

“Patches was an idea from four of our members,” McGuire said. “They took it and ran with it. There were these blank walls at the Georgia Cancer Specialists, which is where Survivor Buddies is. They said ‘We want to put something on that wall,’ so Patches was the thought that came out of that.

They made a quilt and it was absolutely beautiful. That is what their grant money was used for. They bought a sewing machine. They bought fabric and all the backing, everything that they needed for that.”

A GIVE Team member’s organization can be chosen for a grant, but the member cannot be a part of the process in applying or deciding approval.

Kendall Stiles, the director of the GIVE Center, knows how helpful the grants can be for the students.

“I would really encourage students to take advantage of the Inspire By Example program,” Stiles said.

When students earn a grant for a service project, it looks good on their resume. Likewise, GIVE Team members can also include their involvement on their resume to demonstrate their leadership and involvement on campus.

The GIVE Team was created three years ago by Stiles with the idea of wanting a student group to share in the center’s work.

“It’s very much a student process,” Stiles said.

As the GIVE Team grows, it will more than likely begin choosing members by taking applications and holding interviews. For now, members of the organization are handpicked by Stiles and Burnett.

McGuire has been a part of the GIVE Team for one year.

“The GIVE Team is a great way for leaders that are interested in community service and have a passion for community service to get the word out about what we do to further help other people know about it, and to help our campus, as a whole, grow to become more community service based,” McGuire said.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 18 2009. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry