Community Development Grants Approved

Posted by Jean Searfoss

on Jan 12, 2016

Morning Star Rotary’s 2015-16 Community Development Grants have been approved the Board. Thanks to the committee for their work. The process used:

A simplified “Request for Proposal” was publicized, and applications were accepted for a month.
A summary sheet and about 3 pages from each of the 20 applications received (a record!) were sent out to the six Community Development Grants Committee members.
Each of the six committee members assigned points (from low of 0 to high of 5) to each applicant.
A point summary was distributed.
The committee met and agreed to recommend full funding of the top 3 rated
The bottom half (10 of 20 applications) were eliminated.
We then discussed the remaining 7, and some people modified their points. (Considerations included location, number of children helped, long term impact, and cost effectiveness.)
Agreed on one additional full funding and one partial funding to total the $8,000 budget.
At it’s Dec. 9 meeting, the board discussed and then approved the committees’ recommendations.
Each of our five recipients will present at a Morning Star Rotary meeting over the next few months. They are:

	Organization	Approved	Description
1	Allentown Band	$ 2,000	Transforming Student Lives Through the Power of Music
2	Lehigh Valley Children's Centers	$ 1,500	Preschool Science Enrichment at LVCCs for 30 preschoolers age 3-5 in Bethlehem and Easton. Done with Da Vinci Discovery Center.
3	Moravian College and William Penn Elementary	$ 2,500	"Reading and Riding" - provide stationary bikes which allow riding while reading or doing homework.
4	Satori	$ 1,000	In support of "Artists -in-Residence" project at Governor Wolf Elementary. And Satori will perform again at our Spaghetti Dinner!
5	YWCA	$ 1,000	TechGYRLS Afterschool Programs to address persistent gender gap in science and technology professions. Science-Tech-Engineering-Math enrichment to girls ages 9-13 over 16 weeks.