Neighborhood Connections

Earlier this year I was nominated to be a member of the Neighborhood Connections Grant Making Committee which is funded by The Cleveland Foundation [a public charity with super nice digs]. I didn’t think the interview went to well, mainly because of my age, lack of experience and the intensity of the competition [three weeks of interviews and only one position and six alternates to fill], but I got a call from Joel Ratner today, telling me that I had been selected as an alternate. This basically means I do all the work that the full committee members do, but don’t get a vote. This is still better than I had hoped for, as this will look very nice on a résumé and will allow me to expand my participation and knowledge of and in the Cleveland community. This is the type of civic involvement that I most enjoy, helping folks empower themselves. Hopefully the process will be as rosy as I hope, although I’m sure reading through all the grants and researching them will be a bit of a chore.