Correction appended
Freshman Service Experience students that worked with the nonprofit organizations Lands and Waters and Street Sense were given two $500 grants to put toward more work with their respective organizations.
The grants, from Eagle Endowment, help students continue the work that they began during FSE, a three-day program of student-led community service that takes place during Welcome Week.
The grant will fund public service projects at the organizations over the course of a year, said Katie Zahm, Eagle Endowment coordinator and a first-year graduate student in the School of Public Affairs.
The Eagle Endowment council reviewed the grant applications and interviewed FSE leaders and participants prior to giving out the grants. The Eagle Endowment council is made up of Zahm, several students and a professor, including:
• Lizzie Martinez, a first year master’s student in the School of Public Affairs,
• Laura Olsen, a Juris Doctor student,
• Melissa Sullivan, a sophomore in SPA,
• Alex Hodges, associate librarian
• and Adriana Grau, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences.
The leaders of the two FSE teams applied for the grants and collaborated with the freshmen participants that were interested in continuing their projects.
The leaders for Lands and Waters are Emily Lutz, a sophomore in CAS, and Anna Williford, a junior in the Kogod School of Business.
The leaders for the FSE Street Sense group are Nellie Mitchell, a sophomore in CAS, and Rebecca Zisser, sophomore in the School of Communication.
Five of the FSE participants for Lands and Waters were interested in continuing work with the organization and the entire FSE Street Sense group was interested in applying for an Eagle Endowment Grant.
Street Sense
Street Sense is a non-profit organization that publishes a bi-weekly newspaper written, published and distributed by people who are homeless. The newspaper sells for $1 per issue and all of the profits from newspaper sales go to the homeless vendors.
During their FSE experience, AU students worked with the vendors to help sell papers.
“We’ve got different little grants over the years, but nothing quite like this,” said Mary Otto, the editor-in-chief for Street Sense.
The Street Sense endowment will help AU students create new badges for the vendors.
“The nicest part about this I think is that it directly helps the vendors,” Otto said.
Lands and Waters
Lands and Waters, a nonprofit organization focused on watershed protection and education, received Eagle Endowment funding for the second time.
FSE students worked at Kimball Elementary School in northeast D.C. and will buy tools, soil and plants with the grant money to continue planting projects with Kimball students.
“At Kimball Elementary, we don’t have a lot of financial support at all,” said Kris Unger, vice president of Lands and Waters.
“I think that’s kind of an inspiration that we’re filling the kind of gaps that are overlooked,” said Pete Olsson, a freshman in the School of International Service, who participated in the FSE Lands and Water group.
Eagle Endowment
Eagle Endowment has given out FSE-specific grants for the past six years, said Marcy Campos, director of the AU Center for Community Engagement and Service.
The Eagle Endowment grants are entirely made up of donations from various alumni and groups or from fundraising done by past senior classes.
Eagle Endowment also includes two other grants, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Grant and the Spring Grant, which are open to students outside the FSE program, Zahm said.
news@theeagleonline.com
Full Disclosure: Zisser is a news assistant at The Eagle.
Correction: A previous version of this story said the grants were worth $5,000 each. The actual number is $500. The article also stated that Melissa Sullivan is a senior, but she is a sophomore, and did not include Adriana Grau, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, as a council member.
