DONE

For better or for worse my grants are in. The past month (and really week) I've been running around trying to figure out the finishing touches on my grants. I wrote finished two last night. One was for my fitness club and the other was for an English Resource Center. I sent my fitness club to a few friends to look over, and AFTER I e-mailed my final copy my friend told me there were a few typos and grammatical mistakes made that she fixed... Ugh. Hopefully the SPA Committee won't notice those... Well, I guess they will now that they are reading my blog.

The other grant I wrote was really short, and it was with another organization. My friend contacted me and told me there was this opportunity, but I had to write the grant in one day. Soooo, the same day I'm trying to get one grant signed, stamped, dated, and edited I was writing a second, completely different one. I certainly feel like my Dad now, and understand why he'd always get grumpy whenever we bothered him while he had to write these things. The thing is, if you take your mind off the grant for too long you lose your place and then start writing something totally incoherent. So, sorry, Dad. I shouldn't have asked you to fix my computer when you were writing your grants.

What are the chances of these grants going through? I don't know honestly. I was told there's quite a few grants going in this time, and the competition for the money will be pretty high. All we can do is hope I did it all right and my project shows the needs of our community. I met again with the director of the sports school and showed him pictures of all the equipment I am trying to buy. He is REALLY excited. I'd be so sad if we didn't get it, because he would be devastated. As for the Resource Center... Well, it's something I've always wanted to do, but I never felt like I had anyone to work with on it. My host father was really helping me with the fitness club (unfortunately he's in Ukraine selling persimmons), and he has been asking me the past 5 months "Any word on the Fitness Club?"

This project is really my defining moment as a Peace Corps Volunteer. All the work I do at school and the University are things that I can feel happy and moderately proud of... but all the tools were already there for me to work it out. The fitness club... this is my creation. This is something I helped find with the help of community members, and it's been a part of me for almost 9 months--that pretty much makes it my baby. I am trying to remain realistic, but I'm hoping for the best, and really looking forward to what the future may hold here.

In other notes... I got more money to buy blackboards. I'll probably be aiming for 7 more. Most will be going to a village school up the road from Keda. Maybe one or two will stay in Keda.

I really wanted to save this for my last paragraph. This is a THANK YOU to my friends and family who helped me with donations. With your help we raised over $1000 for the project. $1000!!!!!! I have to thank you all, and I already have planned exactly what the money will buy. The project still isn't closed, and you can continue contributing to the project until it reaches $1800 or I close it (which will happen if I get the other grant). I honestly haven't thought about what I'd do if I don't get the grant. What would happen to the $1000? I suppose I'd have to find a way to either return the money or use it on another project? I'm not sure how that works.

Some of you have also asked about the safety of Wide Awake. Wide Awake is COMPLETELY 100% SAFE. Right now they are still in their testing phase, and they are waiting to renew the security subscription until they switch over to their new system. Stay tuned, too, because I will be adding more projects to the Wide Awake site--projects that will be considerably smaller, but nonetheless critical to my community's need.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!