Tipp City Teen Leadership Academy Presents Grants to Local Non-Profits

Nine Tipp City high school juniors (next year’s seniors) recently spent a week visiting local businesses and government offices, practicing leadership skills, and learning about non-profits in the Tipp City and Bethel Township area. The teens were selected to participate in the Leadership Academy, which annually sponsors Tipp High School juniors interested in learning about and helping fund local non-profit organizations that help needy citizens.

The teens gathered at the Tipp Center on Friday, June 7, at 1:00 p.m. along with parents, non-profit representatives, and Richard Bender of the Tipp Foundation, which provided the grant money for the non-profits. The Teen Leadership Academy was sponsored by the Tipp Chamber of Commerce, represented by the Chamber’s Executive Director, Meredith McKee.

After Richard Bender made opening remarks about the Tipp Foundation, each of the nine students described how “their non-profit” served Tipp and Bethel Township’s needy citizens. The original request for funds had been $8,000, but the grants were limited to a total of $5,000, so the teens had to work together as a team to determine what would be funded and how much.

Below are the teens, non-profits, and grants provided by the Tipp Foundation:

• Presenter               Non-Profit                                       Grant       Project Name

• Muskaan Sandhu   Bethel Hope                                     $500       Cooling Communities in Summer Heat           

• Parker Kaibas        Brukner Nature Center                   $168.50 Hands-on Props for Wildlife Encounters

• Emersyn Gorrell     CASA/GAL, Miami County             $500       CASA Caring Tree 2024

• Charlie Schinaman Downtown Tipp Partnership           $208.25 Elevate Our Community Play

• Muskaan Sandhu   Miami County Dental Clinic            $500       Traveling Smiles

• Sadhil Mehta          Needy Baskets, Southern MC        $500       December Holiday Basket Program

• Collin Snider           The New Path, Inc.                          $500       Anna’s Closet

•                                   The New Path, Inc.                          $415       New Path Food Pantry                                                                                                          The New Path, Inc.                          $500       J.J. Furniture Barn

• Gracie Raiff             Tipp City Enhancement Program   $500       Summer Adventure 2024

• Sadhil Mehta          Tipp Monroe Community Services $500       Community Relief Program

• Jack McMurry         Tipp Monroe Community Services $500       Lunch on Us

Once the grants were awarded, the teens described their week learning about local businesses. The businesses they visited included Abbott, Repacorp, and Monroe Federal; government offices in Tipp City’s Government Center and the Miami County Courthouse; the Health Partners Free Clinic in Troy; Aileron’s campus and program for private business leaders; and the Tipp Foundation, Chamber of Commerce, and Rotary. As one teen said, it was a very exciting week!

After the meeting, Gracie Raiff was asked if she and her classmates had particular roles during the week. “We are all leaders, but we’re coming together to be better leaders. We’re all students, and that’s our role: to become better leaders,” said Raiff. The most interesting experience for her was that Tipp City companies all work together for the city, in different roles. She thought Repacorp was the most interesting business because “they had their hands on many different things.” She also had thought that Abbott was a car or trucking company, but after her visit there, she realized what they did and “was impressed by the precautions they took to make everything so clean.”