By Sarah Lang/The Lebanon Reporter
Boone County — Boone County Youth as Resources awarded more than $8,700 to Boone County youth Sunday at a kickoff celebration.
More than 160 youth and adults attended the celebration at Trinity Lutheran Church. Lebanon’s 2010 Indiana Teacher of the Year Byron Ernest was the guest speaker. YAR, a United Way of Central Indiana program, gave $8,796.31 to 12 youth-led projects — seven student-led, two 4-H, one library, one Boy Scout and one Girl Scout.
“It’s always hard to choose,” said Amy Hammerle, program coordinator for YAR Boone County, explaining those who choose look for projects that are youth-led with a lot of youth involvement and those with detailed budgets who have done the background work to prove the need.
Third-graders at Trader’s Point Christian Academy in Whitestown were awarded $999.53 to make comfort bags for children admitted into the emergency room at Witham. They made 200 bags Wednesday, filling them with things like stuffed animals, books, decks of cards, get well cards and activity books, in an assembly-line style.
“This is really cool,” said student council representative Emily Mais. “I hope we get more grants next year.
Mais said she and a friend, Emma Lamb, plan to apply for one themselves next year to start a mentor program.
Adult advisor Karynn Seppel said this grant process provides kids a way to really make a difference.
“Sometimes kids don’t have funding or the supervision to pull it off,” she said. “But YAR provides the means to make the impossible possible for them.”
The third-graders at TPCA were talking about compassion one day in class, Seppel said, when some kids mentioned when they were in the hospital, someone gave them a gift and it made them feel good. So the class decided they wanted to make that feeling available for local children that go to the emergency room.
See Friday's Lebanon Reporter for the complete story.
