The Youth in Philanthropy (YIP) program of the Northern Piedmont Community Foundation (NPCF) has announced that the Rainbow Therapeutic Riding Center in Haymarket is the recipient of its $10,000 grant.
Eight students, including one from Rappahannock County High School, selected the riding center as part of the YIP program that was started in April 2022. The program aims to provide teenagers in Rappahannock, Fauquier, Madison and Culpeper counties with hands-on experience in philanthropy and to further engage them with the community.
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RCHS junior Alexis Gainer was one of 8 students who, after a rigorous application review process, selected a therapeutic riding center to receive a funding grant.
At the Oct. 19 grant announcement, Alexis Gainer, a junior at Rappahannock County High School, gave a presentation on community foundations. She was among the students who presented to a room of 40 family members, friends and NPCF board members and staff on topics such as the history of philanthropy, what a nonprofit is, issues they feel are facing today’s youth and how to address them. The event was held at the PATH Recreation and Fitness Center in Culpeper.
Andrew Lerudis, a senior at Fauquier High School, made the announcement that Rainbow Therapeutic Riding Center, an equine therapy organization that strives to enhance the lives of those with disabilities through equine-assisted activities, would receive this year’s grant. The grant is intended to support nonprofits that provide services for or are run by young people in the community.
Students in the YIP program are given five grant applications, narrowed down by the NPCF grant committee, and are then tasked to review them, conduct interviews with nonprofit leaders and make site visits before choosing the organization to receive the grant.
Jane Bowling-Wilson, executive director of NPCF, said after the five organizations are selected, students are the sole deciders of where the funding goes. NPCF leadership educates students on topics such as logic models, tax forms and budgets, then takes a step back and allows the students to work independently to choose an organization.
“The whole point of this is to teach them skills so that they have the ability to question and analyze and summarize, and then they make the choice,” Bowling-Wilson said.
Bowling-Wilson said it is important to engage young people in philanthropy to show them how important community involvement is, and the positive impact philanthropy can have on people. YIP is one of about 750 grantmaking youth philanthropy programs worldwide, a style of youth community engagement that has proven to be vital for community growth since it first emerged in the 1980s, according to the National Center for Family Philanthropy.
Many students think people have to have money to get involved with philanthropy, which is a myth Bowling-Wilson hopes to debunk through the program. She hopes to show students how nonprofits and community foundations operate, and how their involvement can improve the lives of others.
“What you hope is that those people, those young people, will teach other young people and come back to the communities,” Bowling-Wilson said. “The old saying [is] it takes a village, it takes a team. And so the more people that understand how [philanthropy] works in a community, in a community foundation and nonprofits, the better.”
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