Stride Rite Foundation Awards Public Service Grants

Since 1983, the Stride Rite Foundation has supported undergraduate public service by providing Stride Rite Summer and Term-Time Scholarship winners with a grant that enables them to devote time that would otherwise go to a regular work-study position to public service.

The Stride Rite Foundation expanded its support of young people doing public service in 1989 by offering recent Harvard graduates grants to pursue yearlong service projects. Most of the projects funded are community-based programs in the United States and abroad that include one-on-one interaction with populations in need.

The funding is awarded by a selection committee made up of representatives from the Student Employment Office and the Stride Rite Foundation, and Phillips Brooks House administrators and Phillips Brooks House Association trustees. The award grants range from $10,000 to $25,000 - based on the needs of the programs being funded - to a total of approximately $60,000 in annual awards. These funds cover a stipend for living expenses for the award recipient, as well as funding for program expenses where needed.

The awards granted this year are to Rebecca Onie '97 and 1998 graduates Shoshana Weiner, Crystal Redd, and Joy Milligan.

Onie received a renewal of her postgraduate Stride Rite grant. Her Stride Rite award will be used to ensure the longevity of Project Health (which she founded) by strengthening its administrative structure and researching issues of health policy.

Weiner will be working as director of the Food Cooperative Project in conjunction with Boston Medical Center to address hunger and food issues of low-income families. Crystal Redd will serve as an Intern-Investigator at the Public Defender Service in Washington, D.C., working to provide legal representation for indigent adults and children charged with criminal offenses. Milligan will leave the country to establish Bicileta Quisqueya, a bike repair shop, in a rural community in the Dominican Republic. The shop will train local teens in bicycle repair and pay them a stipend to allow them to continue their education, while providing an alternative means of transportation for residents.

Some past projects awarded grant funding in the Boston area include a position teaching children English as a second language at a community health clinic in Chinatown, and a high school teaching and counseling position in Dorchester. Stride Rite has also funded graduates working in public service in Baltimore, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Texas, Puerto Rico, and Mexico, and overseas in Cambodia, Kenya, Lebanon, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Over the past nine years, the Stride Rite Post-Graduate Awards Program has boosted its funding and scope, and plans to continue to support public service projects that serve communities in need, here and around the world.

For more information regarding the application process for Stride Rite Post-Graduate Public Service Fellowships, and Term-Time or Summer Scholarships, contact the Stride Rite Community Service Program at Phillips Brooks House, 495-8501, or e-mail the Program Coordinator at mlindsey@law.harvard.edu.