GV Youth Philanthropy choosing grant recipients

ORWELL – As the school counselor, Carrie Brumit was hesitant to become the Youth Philanthropy Club advisor at Grand Valley High School.
After several years guiding the group, Brumit takes pride in what her students accomplish.
“I was hesitant at first when (former GV Youth Philanthropy Advisor Annie) Peters gave me the job,” Brumit said. “She was like, ‘You’re the person I want to be in charge of it.’ I thought, ‘Oh, gosh, I don’t know if I can be good at this.’ Really, it was a complete blessing because, year after year, I have had the opportunity to see them do hard work, make good decisions, and then impact the community.”
The GV Youth Philanthropy students are kids who will continue to make an impact in their community long after they graduate.
“These are the people who are taking that back out into Orwell and Roaming Shores and our local community, and they’re still doing good things in our community even after they graduate,” Brumit said. “I feel like it’s almost kind of planting the seed that they can continue on. I’m very much about you don’t have to have money and fun things in order to give back to the universe.”
“I think this is a prime example where their hard work pays off,” Brumit continued. “They put in time and dedication with what they’re good at – studying, analyzing things, having hard conversations about the funds and what they want to do with it. Those skill sets they have, and so they’re just lending them to the organizations that they end up giving money to, and the foundation itself. I think it’s a win-win.”
Members of the Grand Valley High School Youth Philanthropy Club include Cloe Turk, Violet Morse, Liam Hart, Max Thirion, Adam Hylton, Trenton Murduck, Anthony Eason, and Greyson McGhee. Not pictured are Danica Meckley and Kylee Portzer.
“There’s a youth philanthropic group in every school in the county, and the Ashtabula Foundation gives us all $5,000. (Kids are selected) based off of their moral compass,” Brumit said. “They also have to have good grades. We want a student that’s well rounded. A lot of my kids are in a lot of things. I don’t keep kids who are regularly not participating. Those are our two contingencies. We don’t have an application.”
“Annie Peters, who was formerly a Grand Valley teacher, started the Youth Philanthropic organization with the Ashtabula Foundation,” Brumit continued. “She had a pilot here, and she only kept 10 students. When she retired, she passed the baton to me, and so I have only kept 10 students.”
The Ashtabula Foundation provides $5,000 for the students to reward in grants. The maximum the group is allowed to award in a single grant is $2,000.
“We sent applications to every nonprofit that is registered with the Ashtabula Foundation,” Brumit said. “They give us a list, and it was more than 90 (organizations) and so we did 90 mailers.”
The allows the students to make an impact on their community.
“It’s one little thing they do every month and have such an impact on the community,” McGhee said. “You can do all these different clubs, but this is the only one where you go out, you give money, you’re actually doing stuff. You can see the work that you’re doing directly and it’s very easy.”
Each student has received forms on which they will evaluate each of the applications before deciding which organizations will receive an interview.
“We kind of narrow it down with a rational dialog back and forth,” Brumit said. “It’s always been really quite easy. They just kind of barter back and forth a little bit. I referee.”
The students each mailed a number of applications in October and they were to be returned by Dec. 1.
Of the 90 applications mailed to organizations, nine were returned. A year ago, 12 were returned.
“I would say, on average, we end up with probably six (grants awarded),” Brumit said. “Last year, we ended up funding six and we did not fund six.”
During December and January, the students review applications, scheduling site visits and scheduling interviews with grant applicants.
In February, the students will meet to determine grant awards and will submit their final recommendations to the Ashtabula Foundation for approval.
“Everyone that we’re giving the grants to are around the community, so you can really see the impact, and you don’t really have to do too much work for the amount of impact you have,” Trenton Murduck said. “It’s really nice.”
Check presentations will be scheduled in March.
“It’s not an easy task,” Brumit said. “Everything that’s in front of them, they see value in it, so making the hard choice that, ‘Hey, we only have $5,000,’ has to be done by someone, and so it gives them this well-rounded feeling of, ‘Well, I know how to evaluate.’ They have to, they have to have interpersonal skills, because we do the interviewing. They travel to the sites to determine whether or not they want to (award a grant). They debate. When you see all these things come together for them, it really is fulfilling.”
The students undertake the entire process from sending out applications through selecting which organizations will be awarded a grant. The students are expected to find errors within applications as well as whether or not an application qualifies for a grant.
“Almost nobody gets everything they ask for,” McGhee said. “Because there’s $5,000 across, nine people, everybody’s probably getting like, a couple hundred dollars, normally. Not everybody can usually get what they need. Some people just need, like, walkie talkies, and other people need it for events specifically. Then you have to decide who needs more of their funds made than others.”
The students usually need to find compromises to ensure they help as many organizations as they deem necessary,
“I think it really helps that we don’t have to give them the full amount, because then we can lower their amount and then give it to more places,” Murduck said. “That makes it less difficult, because you don’t have to cut out as many organizations. It’s still hard to lower the amount.”
Brumit’s role is to simply guide the students through the process without offering her opinion.
“I think it’s difficult because you’re only working with 10,” Brumit said. “You could work with 50, but the conversations are authentic (with 10). The level of work has to be evenly divided. Nobody really can just show up with the group and check the box that they’re part of something without actually having to do work, because, like, around the table, you’ve got to speak up. I have kept the choice of 10 relative to their work ethic, their attendance, their grades, because Annie Peters, when she passed the baton, told me that’s how she had always done it. She wanted to see it that legacy continue in the same capacity.”
The students also participate in at least one service project.
“Our biggest service project is Feed the Hope,” Brumit said. “We take 50 to 60 high-school students from Grand Valley. Our youth philanthropic kids attend with myself and then Clint Nims, our former football coach. We do all the manual labor, moving the packages to the trailer. We kind of are the outside edge of Feed the Hope. That is our biggest project right out of the gate. They work like crazy preparing for it, and then, obviously, the day of activity. Similar to that, a lot of these kids are the ones who are in my Kindness Club. We did a canned food drive in November, Their hands are in all of those service projects, but our primary responsibility, or the one that I’ve assigned to them, is the Feed the Hope.”