By Anna Skinner
Youth as Resources, a program through United Way of Central Indiana, are currently beginning their grant cycle – which provides youth of Hamilton Co. with grants for community service projects.
Joel Bruns, Westfield High School librarian and a member of the Hamilton County Youth as Resources Advisory Board, said the board is comprised of 30 members divided between youth and adults.
“Youth are just as important contributing members of the board as the adults, we try to share responsibilities,” Bruns said. “We sit on the board to select the grants that get funded. We do all of Hamilton County.”
The grant process has just begun, and Hamilton Co. youth recently had a chance to attend a grant writing workshop to assist them with their application. Now that the workshops are over, the youth write a proposal, create a budget, and then the board will read the grants and select the ones they deem most worthy.
“The grants try to focus on four areas to fund and those four areas are education, income, health and basic needs,” Bruns said. “As long as they get it to those four areas they look to fund in those grants get passed. We get lots of Eagle Scout projects or Girl Scout projects to help out with food pantries and stuff like that.”
The grants can be funded up to $1,000. There is no budget for the advisory board to follow. Last year, the board funded $12,145.49 for 14 different projects.
Selections for the grants will be done at the end of March. Bruns said that since the three workshops were just completed, he doesn’t imagine many proposals have been finished yet.
Any youth interested in applying did not need to attend the workshops to qualify, although Bruns said they did help with learning how to write a grant proposal.
The deadline for grant applications is Feb. 5 no later than 5 p.m.
For youth to apply, visit www.ctkodm.com/uwci and enter the username YAR and the password YAR. The applicant will then fill out information regarding his or her project and submit. Bruns said within one business day the applicant will receive access codes to allow them to submit an online application.
For any questions, contact Bruns at [email protected].
