Building partnerships and applying for grants

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This has been a super productive week! How did that happen? Well, I'll tell ya.

I was finally able to put a PayPal donation button on the L&LNM website (www.liveandlearnnm.com). No donations so far but that's okay.

We are now registered with the NM Center for Nonprofit Excellence and can take advantage of the many helpful tools on their website. Last week, I saw a call for volunteers on their site for a  grant writer to work with a new nonprofit in the Los Lunas area. I had read about them in the Valencia newspaper when I first moved here. I responded to the ad, suggesting that we work in partnership to meet common goals. Turns out our goals fit together nicely.

The name of the nonprofit is Love from Above. It is run by a couple who found themselves with an "extra" house on their property that they decided to turn into a safe home for homeless, pregnant women and teens. Their doors, once they are up and running, will be open to women throughout the state.

L&LNM can offer much to the women who reside at Love from Above. We can offer workshops to help them prepare to re-enter the workforce or go back to school. We can offer high school equivalency test preparation classes to help them pass the GED and other such tests. For those residents/students who show talent in teaching, we hope to offer part-time, paid work as instructors and staff.

Yesterday, I visited A New Awakening, Rio Rancho, a counseling service where I had taught last year when I was still with UNM-Los Alamos. After I left, the newly begun GED prep class we had set up there could not be sustained. My timing yesterday was great. If we have the funding, we will start classes there in August.

That's when I decided to not only help Love from Above write their grant proposal but I'd submit one myself for L&LNM. DUH! The grant we are going for is a NM Children's Foundation grant, and it allows for operational costs so I'm going for two instructor salaries for two 6-week sessions starting this summer.

The proposal is due tomorrow so I'm signing off to get that done. Make it a great Thursday and learn something.


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