Meet the Driving Force Behind the Grant Program
Nancy White is a founding member of the MCMGA Grant Program and one of only nine current members who meet the Advanced Gold 1000 level of certification.
Nancy on her deck, 2024
A Perfect Set of Skills
Nancy White raised a family, volunteered at VIM (Volunteers in Medicine, a free primary health care clinic in Bloomington, now defunct), and volunteered to teach English as a second language in the community. Oh, and she also manages a 7.4 acre homestead with terraces and raised gardens close to Lake Monroe!
All this while pursuing a career in education, where she taught music to elementary and middle school students in almost every school in Bloomington. Over time, and with graduate studies and an advanced degree in education under her belt from Indiana University-Bloomington, she secured positions in school administration. Moving on, she served as a consultant for the state of Indiana’s newly introduced state assessment tests in education starting in the 1990s.
Winding down her career, she supervised student teachers in the classroom and gave them straight forward assessments of their performance. Sometimes regretfully suggesting they might flourish better in another field.
Grant Program Begins
It is with all this expertise in helping people learn and grow that Nancy came to be a founding member of the MCMGA grant program in 2011. After retiring professionally in 2001 she took the Master Gardening class in the winter of 2002. She served in several capacities and by 2010 was a member of the board of directors when the first Garden Fair was a huge success.
With then Purdue liaison Amy Thompson’s approval, Nancy researched other non-profits to see how they used profits generated from activities like the Garden Fair. The board embraced her findings and welcomed the idea that profits gleaned from activities should be redistributed to the community through a grant program.
In 2011, the first annual Grant Program was established with a budget of $1800. and dispersed among six awardees.
Implementation
Nancy had successfully transported her skills with organization, assessment, grant-writing, and so much more, to lead a continuing project for MCMGA. It is another avenue by which we, as Master Gardeners, fulfill our goal of “helping others learn” by:
Encouraging community gardening
Getting young people involved
Teaching about invasive plants
Introducing urban gardening
Acquainting people to native plants
And so much more!
Logistically, Nancy administers the program, and each year a committee of five volunteers (including Nancy) review the applications. She says she looks for committee members who are “committed and who have some experience.” Those might include teachers, folks who volunteer often, and people who will carefully assess and rank the project details as set forth in the application. This process happens over the course of two meetings as Nancy tries to be respectful of the time commitment of members.
Decisions are made based on many factors, including community impact and level of commitment. Often, the grant committee suggests a MCMGA member to help guide the recipients through the implementation of the project. Each committee member describes their decision-making process to the group and the process can be fluid.
Sometimes a decision is made to only partially fund a project. Whether full or partial funding, a majority vote is required. Nancy says, “Some have been more worthy than others, but the Grant Committee commented this year that the applications get more thorough and interesting each year.”
“Main Street organizations across the state partner with local organizations to benefit their communities. Thanks to the MCMGA grant, funds were provided to buy the flowers and planting materials for hanging baskets for Ellettsville’s historic Sale Street. Sherry Wise from Wylie House Gardens gave a class on container gardening later in the Summer featuring the baskets.”
Select Photographs Submitted in Final Reports
ABOVE: At the conclusion of their project, awardees submit a Final Report that often includes photo documentation. Click on any photo to enlarge it and read the caption.
“Thank you for your contribution to my project. I greatly appreciate the opportunity you have given to me to serve my community. The project was a huge success.”
