After receiving a record number of proposals, the Eagle Endowment awarded Freshman Service Experience Grants to seven student groups in a ceremony Oct. 14.
The FSE program at AU enables students to volunteer on community improvement projects in the D.C. area before the start of fall semester. This year’s FSE Grants consisted of $500 in funding for the seven selected groups, enabling them to continue the work they started this summer, according to Sasha Bloch, the coordinator of the Eagle Endowment and senior in the School of International Service.
This year, 650 students participated in FSE, up from almost 600 in 2008. Last year only three groups received funding to continue their endeavors, according to the Eagle Endowment. Bloch attributed the increase in participation and applicants for the grants to the “enthusiasm of the class of 2013.”
“These students took the initiative to apply for the grant to add on to [services they provided],” Bloch said.
The Eagle Endowment began its FSE Grant program in 2006. The Eagle Endowment Council selects the grant recipients from a pool of both individual and student group applications. This year, the council was made up of three undergraduate students, one graduate student and two staff or faculty members with experience in outreach, social media and event planning, according to Bloch.
Three of the grant recipients will focus on gardening projects, but each uses this approach “in different capacities for different reasons,” Bloch said.
At Damien Ministries, students will use their grant money to cultivate a vegetable garden. Growing their own produce will alleviate the cost of feeding community members at the organization’s food bank, Bloch said.
At Bancroft Elementary School, FSE students will use their funds to engage younger students (3 to 17 years old) in an educational gardening experience.
Volunteers at the Emergence Community Arts Collective, a community-building organization in the Pleasant Plains neighborhood, will create a butterfly garden at the Collective in order to beautify the property, according to the Eagle Endowment.
Sara Stahlberg, leader of the ECAC FSE group and senior in the School of Communication, said Sylvia Robinson, founder of ECAC, inspired her group to further their support for the organization.
“[Robinson] grew up in Pleasant Plains, attended American University and has now returned to her old neighborhood with the mission of uplifting its residents and strengthening their sense of community,” Stahlberg said. “She embodies this year’s FSE theme of taking ownership and responsibility for our home, our D.C.”
Even without the grant money, her group would have continued their involvement with the organization because of Robinson, Stahlberg said.
Other grant recipients plan to expand upon their work with the Latino Federation, Facilitating Leadership in Youth, Citygate, and Lifepieces to Masterpieces, Bloch said.
At the Latino Federation, the group’s main goal will be to slow or stop gentrification in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, according to Bloch. Bloch said the project is especially important because it demonstrates AU’s involvement with the Latino community.
“The Latino community is not on their own,” she said.
In addition to the first-year volunteers, each winning group included an FSE leader — a sophomore, junior or senior at AU who led the group in August.
This shows that it is “not just freshmen who have the excitement,” Bloch said. “It’s all of AU.”
You can reach this staff writer at sparnass@theeagleonline.com.
