Summer enrichment at OUS

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June 11, 2009

Teacher and Columbus woman help students get scholarships for excellence

Mike James/The Independent The Daily Independent Thu Jun 11, 2009, 10:53 PM EDT

Ironton — A Raceland-Worthington High School teacher is teaming with a Columbus woman to ease the way for some area children to attend a summer enrichment program at Ohio University Southern.

Tom Collins is the teacher, and he wants to help students go to the Academy of Excellence, which offers a week of educational fun activities in July and August on the OUS campus.

He is working with Emily Douglas, who lives in Columbus but has strong ties to the Tri-State. Douglas, 26, is the founder of Grandma’s Gifts, a nonprofit organization that provides a wide range of assistance to children in various Appalachian communities.

It’s an organization Douglas created when she was 11 in memory of her grandmother, Norma Ackison of Ironton. It was her grandmother’s stories of childhood privation and her constant efforts to help local children and families that prompted Douglas to launch her philanthropic career.

Since its founding the organization has grown dramatically and has provided some $12 million in goods and services to families and organizations in Appalachian Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and Tennessee.

Another of Douglas’ grandparents was the late Bill Douglas of Ironton, a longtime employee of The Independent’s composing department.

Douglas and Collins want to provide scholarships that will cover the cost of the program for 20 students. It won’t be the first time Grandma’s Gifts has helped send students to the academy; the organization has been doing that for a decade, Douglas said.

What is different this time is Collins is networking with others in the northeast Kentucky education community to raise money and refer children who would benefit from the program but can’t afford it.

Collins read about Douglas in a newspaper story and saw parallels with his own grandmother and his West Virginia background. So he called Douglas and offered to help out.

Both of them had a long interest in the academy, he as a teacher and Douglas because she’d spent part of her summers as a girl in Ironton, attended the academy for several years and then volunteered as a helper after she was too old to enroll.

Collins wants to help Douglas raise enough money to send at least 10 children; they’ll shoot for 20 if they can make it that far.

So far they’ve raised $525 and they need $1,100 in all.

Douglas is grateful to Collins for more than the fundraising assistance. Her organization in the past has provided funding for scholarships directly to the academy, she said. But she prefers having intermediaries like Collins who can help identify deserving children, she said.

Donors don’t have to fund an entire scholarship, and making a donation is easy. Grandma’s Gifts has a Web site, www. grandmasgifts.org, and there is a page on the site for donations.

On that page the donor can designate the gift for the academy. Donations may be sent by mail to P.O. Box 2, Powell OH 43065 and similarly designated.

The organization is staffed by volunteers so all donations go to the recipients and not to administrative costs.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2652.

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