Today I had the appointment to meet with MIT’s Community Service Fund.  PHA Thrive is a recipient of CSF’s most recent grant cycle, and as a recipient, I needed to go and speak with them to hear more about next steps.  As you might expect, next steps are rather routine – where to send the check, how to account for the way in which the money gets spent, how to think about and plan for a final report, etc.  But two great non-routine things happened while I was there.

The first great thing was to hear that the Board, that makes the decisions as to which proposals get funded and which ones do not, apparently unanimously supported our proposal!  Very cool, very exciting and very validating of what we’ve been thinking all along.  Children in the Boston/Cambridge/Somerville area schools should not be struggling with hunger while trying to learn.  Hearing this in the meeting made me go back and review the note I received along with the news that we had received their grant.

The second great thing that happened was as I was leaving, members of the board were arriving for a meeting.  I had an opportunity to speak with one of the board members, someone I’ve know for some time but did not know was on the CSF board.  She expressed personally great enthusiasm  and support for the work that we are doing, and invited me to give a quick introduction to another board member whom I’d never met (and I must admit I gave a pretty good elevator pitch).

And so I walked out as though on air, knowing that a check will be showing up at the PHA Foundation within a week, and we’ve engaged a few more minds and hearts in our drive toward a hunger free PHA.