Tuesday, October 19, 2010

October 2010 SatchGrant

Satchel's Pizza has successfully offered the SatchGrant program to schools and charitable organizations in Alachua County for 2 years. Because we are continually learning from this process, we've decided to make some adjustments in time for the 2011 SatchGrant. We've found that the most specific grant requests are the easiest to fund - ones that clearly state an attainable outcome. We're also interested in seeing growth in new program areas rather than contributing to normal operational funding for organizations. We've also decided to lengthen the time limit between SatchGrant awards to a particular organization to 2 years instead of just one. This increases the chances for first time applicants to receive an award. And finally, we've decided to add a third $500 SatchGrant per quarter in order to give funding to more organizations.

That said, once again it was difficult to settle on awards for the October SatchGrant. Ultimately we decided to award the SatchGrant to Florida Organic Growers for their GIFT garden program that provides sustainable nutrition asistance for at-risk populations, increasing local food production and beautifying neighborhoods. We also awarded Zeta Phi Beta Sorority a grant for their Stork's Nest program that promotes prenatal care participation and healthy behaviors during pregnancy to low income women through incentives and education. And we also decided to award a third SatchGrant to Mrs. Yassine's Pre-K ESE class at Lake Forest Elementary School for her Handwriting Without Tears curriculum in order to teach her students how to write successfully.

We'd like to encourage all applicants that didn't receive a SatchGrant this time to reapply for the January 2011 SatchGrant. We will be accepting applications until December 31, 2010 and will offer three $500 grants on January 15, 2011. I would also like to request that those who did receive an award send pictures of their program's progress to satchelsdonation@gmail.com so that I can post them on this blog. Congratulations and best of luck to you all. We really appreciate all that you do for our community.