Baldwin Wallace University’s mission statement says the university is a community dedicated to service with the hope of preparing students to become “contributing, compassionate citizens.”
Baldwin Wallace offers this service through the Jacket Philanthropy Program (JPP).
The program is a service-learning program that works closely with the David & Frances Brain Center for Community Development on campus.
According to the BW website, JPP, “aims to nurture a new generation of philanthropists through grantmaking and community service.”
The students enrolled in this program work with non-profits in the community and award funding on a need basis.
At this year’s Ovation, similarly to years past, the program will be hosting the JPP Grant Awards, the ceremony where select non-profits are awarded grant funding from the program.
At the head of this program is Christy Walkuski, the director of the Brain Center here on campus.
While discussing the award ceremony, Walkuski also touched on how exciting it truly is, watching students help people within the Berea and Cleveland community.
“The program is broken up into four courses, each one with a service learning and grant writing component,” she said, “Each class is given $5000 to award, and they decide which non-profits will be awarded the funding. Then, the classes swap grants, so students have the opportunity to check each other and make sure the grant writing process is really going smoothly.”
Walkuski said that the ceremony at Ovation is special because the students in the class that wins do not know they won before the ceremony, so both the class and the non-profit they’ve been working with for the entire semester find out about the grant funding together.
The classes that participate in the JPP are ENG 309: Grant Writing, PSY 220: Child Maltreatment, PHT 375: Health & Social Justice and SOC 320: Victimology.
The students in the other three classes choose the one class that wins the award, which provides a sense of unity among the students.
Non-profits involved in the JPP Grant Awards for this year include the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center, the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland and the American Red Cross, said Walkuski.
Walkuski encourages students not in these JPP classes to consider them, as they greatly help the community and provide great opportunities for jobs after graduation.
“I have had a number of students in this program get hired by companies straight out of college,” she said. “Grant writing is a great skill and so many companies need people to write them.”
Alumni speaker Megan Wilson will also be providing a keynote at the program.
According to The Cleveland Foundation’s website, Wilson helps the Cleveland community by volunteering in many forms related to social service through her position as the Chief of Staff for the foundation.
The ceremony for the JPP Grant Awards will be held during Ovation, on April 25 at 3:30 p.m. in the Center for Innovation and Growth. For more information, contact Christy Walkuski at [email protected] or visit the BW website.