Thursday, March 20, 2008

A bit of a lull...

I guess there is not a whole lot to report this week at NCI. We've been trying to scrounge up some funding for our universally accessible park at the Weiss playlot. The Ronald McDonald House Charities is giving $31,000 for this beautiful rock climb feature that is easily accessible for kids of all levels and abilities. And we have some more coming from Skillman, Kresge, Greening of Detroit and the Community Foundation. All in all, we need to come up with about $85,000 more to actually make this happen. What gets difficult is that a lot of foundations and organizations like to see who else has pledged money so we need to get money to get more money. But it does look good for us that Ronald McDonald is supporting us, as well as the Community Foundation.

So yeah, that's what I am doing today... grant applications and more grant applications. I have to say it is exciting to work somewhere that actually has money coming in. At my last practicum, so much of my energy was spent soliciting people for money... private donations for political work. It is much more fun to write out to these big foundations everything that NCI has accomplished in the last 10 years and the tangible effects we have seen in the neighborhood. Not to mention that many, many, many organizations and foundations are seriously interested in investing in Detroit, especially Southwest Detroit. Its just nice not to be completely bogged down with all those "How in the world are we going to fund this??" questions.

Leah

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