Summer Grants
Summer Grants
2006 Recipient Profiles
Summer Entrepreneurial/Community Service Grant
Profiles on first two recipients Amy Ahearn and Abhijeet (Sunny) Jha
Amy Ahearn used her McKinley Grant to work with Literacy Volunteers of Maine. The first project was to design a curriculum to help adults master writing skills. Lesson plans written by Amy will serve as templates to be assembled into a 150-page binder that will be distributed to all of the Literacy Volunteers of Maine offices. Ideally, this series of materials will help a tutor teach their student a practical writing task such as filling out a free/reduced school lunch form, writing a letter of consumer complaint, or writing a check. Part of her work included attending the Barbara Bush Literacy Conference in Biddeford and a "town hall meeting" of the Maine Association of Non-Profits. An exciting part of Amy's volunteer project included organizing a Family Literacy Day and a Seadogs' baseball game where 1,000 books were distributed to families.
Literacy Volunteers of Maine was so impressed by Amy's work, that they sent a donation to go back into the McKinley Grant account. Their hope is that many other students will be given the opportunity to serve for the common good of all.
This fall Amy is in India as part of a Term Abroad Program. She will conduct an independent study on female literacy in Madurai. Her summer literacy work is directly feeding into the academic interests she is pursuing as part of her Bowdoin education. Amy is accruing a more informed perspective of education on a global scale, and hopefully is completing some meaningful, change-promoting work in the process.
The pictures included here show the enthusiasm and involvement of the Somali, Sudanese, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Bosnian, Estonian, Afghani and other internationals in the Portland area who greatly benefited from the Summer Grant money.
Abhijeet (Sunny) Jha used his McKinley Grant to register and launch a non-profit foundation in Nepal: Aashraya. His short-term goal was to be able to send 13 children to school (This was the group he had helped the previous summer through the PICF fellowship). As a long-term goal, Sunny wanted to establish an endowment to fund the school expenses of the children beyond the next year.
His major plans continued to evolve and change as the weeks progressed. Sunny created a team of enthusiastic friends here and in Nepal. They determined they would not create schools, but provide funding only to pass along to existing chosen organizations. They would develop minimum standards and monitoring systems, and would instill community trust through transactions that were accessible to all.
The team organized many events to raise funds for Aashraya. A dance party, soccer competition, and band competition were among those that had a combined turnout of over 30,000 people and generated funds of more than $10,000 to go to Aashraya. Sunny believes that his experience was an immensely valuable one, and is very excited about all the endless possibilities that begin from here.
Going forward, Aashraya is undertaking two large ventures. One is an internship program for those wishing to go to Nepal and gain experience in banking and the corporate environment. The second project is Aashraya calling cards which can be used via the internet from anywhere in the world to call anywhere in the world. Profits will be used to fund social service programs, which will continue to grow.