FYI club compensates for lost grant

FYI club was informed this fall that they would not receive the grant that funded Meg Lyles, the club’s sponsor position. The club is known for spreading awareness and getting involved in the community. Those who were involved were disappointed to say the least.

“Obviously I was concerned about that and I was disappointed the grant didn’t get renewed, but it is a federal grant and sometimes that happens,” Lyles said.

Through extra money found in the funding for personnel, however, principal Myron Graber was able to cover Lyles’ position for the remainder of the 2015-16 school year.

We are going to need to work as a club more on fundraising, … keep doing good work and people (will) realize that we are doing good work and we are hopeful,

— Meg Lyles

“I was disappointed because [FYI] does provide a lot of opportunities for some of our students, there are some community connections there and [opportunities] to work with some of our elementary schools,” he said. “So I was disappointed, I was sorry to hear that. That’s why we looked for a way to maintain it through this year.”

FYI is known for its involvement in the community and the outreach work they do.

“We help around the community to raise awareness and prevent the use of drugs and alcohol especially in the school and we also run events like bonfire do movie nights,” junior Ian Pultz-Earle, who is on the FYI board, said.

Although the Free State FYI club was able to cover the money they lost from the grant, the Lawrence High club did not have that extra funding.

“I think [the LHS FYI club] has tried to [keep it up],” Graber said. “The only reason we were able to [fund the club] was because we had a little bit of funding left in our ratio that we were able to pick up [Lyles’] position for the remainder of the school year.”

The club is still unsure of how they are going to fund Lyles’ position next year, considering the extra money will not be there.

“We are going to need to work as a club more on fundraising, … keep doing good work and people (will) realize that we are doing good work and we are hopeful,” Lyles said.