Committee Reports Philanthropy Committee

Michael Simpson, Chair

Hello fellow Water Professionals!

Welcome to the summer update on all things happening with your Philanthropy Committee.

Our committee met at the Annual Conference to review all of our programs, discuss our award winners, discuss our restricted funds and look towards the future of all our endeavors. All of our philanthropic activities continue to move forward and the committee is looking to expand and grow those activities.

As a part of our discussions, the committee is in the process of revamping the Section’s Operator Scholarship program. The goal is to create a more robust and engaging program that benefits Operators and enhances their educational experience. In the meantime, look for the application for Operator Scholarships on the website. The fall Operators School is fast approaching.

The Philanthropy Committee and Section Board of Trustees are promoting our Youth Water Science Educational Grant. This grant is available to Indiana Schools, grades 3 through 8, to teach and promote the water cycle. Educational classes/programs regarding understanding, protecting, and conserving supply and quality of our natural resources for both drinking water and wastewater purposes. Typical areas of these projects may include topics like:

• Promotes understanding, protecting, and conserving supply as well as quality of water

• Hydrologic cycle

• Water quality impacts

• Treatment of drinking water

• Treatment of wastewater

• Usage of drinking water

• Usage of recycled water

The Indiana Section AWWA plans to award a total of $7,500 of grants in 2023.

The intention is to award three grants, each being from a different area of the state. The typical grant is approximately $2,500. Please promote this with your school systems and go to the website for the application.

We congratulate and celebrate our Besozzi Grant and Gambold Education Fund award winners. The following winners joined us at the annual conference, and you can read Vidhatri’s paper on page 28 of this issue.

Besozzi Grant winners

• Vidhatri Iyer, Student, University High School, Carmel, IN

• Paula Coelho, Purdue University, Graduate Studies, Lafayette, IN

Gambold Education Fund winners

• Paul Jacobs, City of Fort Wayne Utilities

• Cody Conner, Town of Geneva

• John Solenburg, Certified Operator/Independent Contractor

• Danny Standiford, Floyds Knobs Water Company

• Scott Will, City of Fort Wayne

• Scott Thorn, Valparaiso City Utilities

Our committee is looking to expand its membership and we need your involvement and engagement with and on this committee!

Participation with and on this committee will serve to enhance our Section’s endeavors to accomplish our goals of helping others throughout Indiana as well as the world achieve clean and safe water. The committee desires everyone’s engagement so that we may continue our shared goals to educate students, provide additional training to even more operators, and to ensure that our waters here at home remain clean and safe as they have for over a century now.