Drum roll, please!

Well, this is it! The moment of truth has finally arrived. After months of discussion and research, the students of UAA's Learning by Giving has selected its four grantees:

• Alaska Legal Services, a provider of free civil legal aid to low-income Alaskans
• Alaska Community Land Trust, devoted to developing healthy and prosperous communities in the city of Anchorage
• STAR - Standing Together Against Rape, providing crisis intervention, education, and advocacy services to victims of rape and sexual assault
• Alaska Injury Prevention Center, focused on preventing traffic and pedestrian injuries in Alaska 

Student ambassadors Mark Phang and Cat Taylor are shown above (background) recording individual students' grantee nominations. From there, the game of elimination began.

"What a bittersweet moment," says student Jory Knott (not pictured), "how incredible it would be if we could award all of them."

I'm with you there, Jory! Let's continue working to make this world a happier, safer place to live!

Let's get down to business... funny business that is!

Sorry not sorry,
But I absolutely had to dig through the inter-web to see if anyone actually wrote non-profit or foundation jokes

Great news everyone... they did!

1) "Knock knock"

    "Who's there?"

    "...The annual fundraising event!"
 
2) "A Development Director found a magic lamp. A genie appeared and offered one wish. The DD said, 'I wish for one million dollars to support my organization.' 'Done,' said the genie, 'come to your office tomorrow and it will be there.' Next day, the DD came to the office and when she opened the door, three million binder clips fell out. 'What the heck!' she said to the genie, 'I asked for one million dollars!' 'Yes,' the genie replied, 'but you didn't specify that it couldn't be in-kind..."

 3) "What do you get when you cross a Program Director, a Volunteer Manager, and a Janitor?"

      Answer: a situation that is not too uncommon in non-profit organizations

Okay, get ahold of yourselves people, enough fun and games.

Greetings from Alaska Learning by Giving! I hope you have popcorn because guess what? I have a masterpiece movie for you. Magnum Opus material right here. AJ gives us some perspective on personal growth over the class and why other students should take this course! This week, we made our grant selections. More to follow on that!

One particular Friday two weeks ago, our city was struck with the first snowfall of winter! As people forgot how to drive on slippery roads, we carefully made our way to campus for "Urban and Rural AK: Community Engagement at UAA". This conference was for networking faculty, students and community members to engage in dialogue together.

After Kirk Rose, CEO of the Anchorage Community Land Trust, gave a keynote presentation about tremendous progress in one of our historically impoverished neighborhoods, we moved into breakout sessions. Our Learning By Giving group panel was made up of our professor Dr. Judith Owens-Manley, the LBG student ambassadors, a student from the grant-writing summer class named Kim, and one of last year's grant winners. That grantee was Heidi Hill, Shelter Manager at Abused Women's Aid In Crisis (AWAIC). Mark and I created the presentation, and were asked to share our classroom experiences, as well as our role being student ambassadors for the LBG Foundation!

You can check out our Prezi below!

Learning By Giving Presentation at Urban and Rural AK Conference, UAA

P.S. -- We heard after the summit that an impressed and enthused faculty member approached the Center for Civic Engagement and Learning, wanting to have a community component in their classes like technical writing did for Learning by Giving. It is great to know this model is effective, and catching on!