I was at a school board meeting last week and I watched a presentation made my some elementary school students. They were sharing videos they had made through their participation in the GenYES program, funded through an Enhancing education Through Technology (EETT) grant. Theie videos were all about the Lifelong Guidelines and Life Skills they had learned through their schools’ participation in another grant program – Partnerships in Character Education.

Several years ago, I was involved with the writing of both of those grant applications, and over the past few years I have served as the evaluator for both of those programs.

As I watched those students make their presentation, I kept thinking back to a few years ago when we were working on those grant applications. Each one started as a vision, an idea. Those ideas were put together in a grant application and here we are, years later, seeing some of those ideas come to life.

Yeah, I get paid for the grant writing and program evaluation services I provide, but this is the real payoff.

I wish that anyone who doubts that grant writing is a creative endeavor could have been there that night to see the proof that’s actually very creative. It can really change the world around you.