What’s Right With Our Schools: School Resource Development Institute at Bessie Smith Cultural Center
CHATTANOOGA, TN (WDEF) – Three Hamilton County schools teamed up to craft strategic funding plans that could change the way they secure resources in the future.
The Bessie Smith Cultural Center was buzzing with excitement as the School Resource Development Institute wrapped up their very first program designed to help Hamilton County students with funding and much more
Development and Grants Facilitator Susannah De Maria says, “Last year, we decided to do more to help our schools, because we do a lot at the central level. We wanted to help our schools to develop skills to raise funding to bring in grants to bring in donations to support projects, and so that started (us) to do some research, see what schools are bringing in money, which ones need a little help and develop a curriculum to help train them to have a sustainable effort.”
Teams from Woodmore Elementary, Redbank Middle, and Ooltewah High School came together to create strategic funding plans.
De Maria continues, “So much growth with them just learning how to put on a fundraising campaign how to write a grant how to get out there and build connections with community members potential donors, elected officials who could help support their projects after an independent review, each school walked away with a $10,000 grant to put their plans into action. It’s a big win for our schools.”
Karen Hollis is a grants coordinator.
She says,” For them, today is a next step for them to get their name out there to pitch their project, but also to make those connections, because that is the ultimate goal today and why we are having the pitch event because when they finish their pitch, they’re going to have a booth where people can come over and give them their card, make a connection with them, write a check if they want to anyone watching this can write a check if they want to connect just call the school and connect with him that way, but it’s not like we said it’s not always the money sometimes it’s just a partnership and coming alongside” .
