Brendan

This week in lieu of class we attended a site visit for at least one of the five finalists for our grant. I was only able to attend the Campfire USA site visit but I did get the chance to speak with my roommates about their site visits to Mentoring to Manhood, Prince George's Tennis and the Latin American Youth Center. From what I saw at Campfire and from what I heard about the other organizations it seems like we are going to have a very interesting week next week with some heated debate.

After the first stage of the application process Campfire USA was one of my top organizations. Now after conducting the interview and going on the site visit Campfire has solidified itself as the top applicant in my opinion. On the site visit I saw a lot of things that I liked. The kids all seemed to be really engaged in the activities while having fun at the same time.

It was especially interesting to see how each activity had so much more going on than appeared on the surface. One of the activities that was going on during our site visit was an ice cream making session. The kids were all really interested in this because of the promise of ice cream at the end of the activity. However there was a lot more to the activity than just making ice cream. The activity leader was teaching the kids about what went into ice cream and giving them an idea about where those ingredients come from. The activity also gave kids a little insight into chemistry without them even realizing. When they saw the salt out with the rest of the ingredients they thought that it went into the ice cream. However they later learned that the salt went in with the ice to make the ice water colder and prevent it from freezing at the normal temperatures.

These kinds of activities are what really set Campfire apart in my mind. In my experiences working with kids it can be really difficult to sit them down and get them to sit down and focus on academics. Campfire provides such an innovative way to integrate fun activities with an educational component.

If this week has done anything I think it has created a set of students who are going to die hard for the organization they support. I live with 3 other PL students (Jason, Eran and Dor) and we have all ready gotten in to small arguments about which organization is most deserving of the grant. I realized that none of the organizations are more deserving than the other organizations. All of the organizations do amazing work and have huge impacts on the young people that come to their organization. As a class we need to figure out what organization fits us best and where do we think that we can get the biggest “bang for our buck.” Looking back on it deciding to make only one large grant rather than 3 small ones might not have been the best idea. There is not a lot certainty when it comes to philanthropy, but one this is certain, next week is definitely going to be interesting.