Your Teen Can Get a $300 Grant for a Community Service Project

Has your teenager ever had a good idea to help our community or a community organization? Are they involved in a service group and they've said they'd like to do something to help further group's mission but lack of money is an impediment? If so than you need to tell your teenager about the Power of Youth Challenge.

The Power of Youth Challenge: Serve This Summer is a leadership and service challenge open to teenagers 13 - 19 years of age. Teens can apply to America's Promise Alliance for a $300 mini grant to use for a service summer project.

Interested teenagers must must fill out a 14 question application and if their project is approved they will receive a $300 mini grant.

The ChildrensMD website says, "Research has shown that teens who engage in community service are more responsible with higher self-esteem and resilience." Additionally service helps teen gain practical skills like leadership, communication, time management, dependability and  decision making. And these are skills they'll utilize a lot later in life. And it's fun.

Putting myself back into my teenage self I'd be very attracted to the idea of getting a grant for a service project. Yet, I'm not sure where I'd start. That's where I think I might get stuck, and that's perhaps where your teen might get stuck. So I tried to think about it and came up with the following:

Are there opportunities to help a youth athletic league their involved in? How bout the school they attend? What about the parks they play in?  How about animals? There's helping the food insecure. There's helping the homeless. What about helping other teens or kids? Of course you could also have your teen contact the United Way. They work with many different area groups and agencies that could help your teen come up with a good service idea.

Also, for about the past year, along with Central Bank of Sedalia we've been highlighting people in our communities who are making a difference by giving back. Perhaps your teen can get a good idea from checking out our archive of Unsung Hero winners.