Dayton Literary Peace Prize Author Series a Natural choice for Grant
By Nancy Bowman
When it neared time for the Tipp City Foundation to award its milestone $3 millionth discretionary grant dollar, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Author Series was a natural choice.
The author series, established in 2019, may be one of the foundation’s newer projects but also one its board has seen have a dramatic impact on the community. The foundation itself had been making grants since 1943.
Tipp City’s Helen Pritchard drew the public library into the peace prize author series, and it has been involved since, said Lisa Santucci, the library’s executive director. The library, in turn, reached out to the Tipp City schools to collaborate.
The program was highly visible again this year with a day of activities that included students, staff and the community at Tippecanoe High School. Featured was Alexander Starritt, author of the highly recognized We Germans.
Activities also include a podcast with WYSO Youth Radio with extensive planning including training, transportation, lunch and getting books for all the students. Santucci, who previously worked as an academic librarian at Miami (Ohio) University, said she had the opportunity to see students interact with authors and see how that experience could change them.
“I wanted this to happen in this town, for our school district especially since it’s happening right down in Dayton,” Santucci said of the peace prize program.
For students, preparation can be extensive with reading and discussing the texts along with literary analysis studies of characters and characterization, and analysis of the narrative techniques the author used, said Brenda Mahaney, Tippecanoe High School English teacher. This year about 230 students were involved in the project along with teachers from the history and English departments.
The program is paid for using grants from several sources including the Tipp City Foundation, which provided $6,500.
The community is fortunate to have the program for its students, Mahaney said.
“Living in a small town is a beautiful thing, but it does have its limitations, especially when it comes to developing a robust and multi-faceted view of the world. People say that books can be mirrors or windows, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize always provides our students the opportunity to look out of a window they might have never previously considered,” she said.
“Our students must be equipped to leave this town and prepared for a world that doesn’t look or think like them and with very different experiences. These texts and experiences help prepare them to be the leaders and forward thinkers that our world needs,” she said.
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THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS
All marketing activities of the Foundation is 100% underwritten by generous sponsors. Please contact us at info@tippfoundation.org for information on how your business or organization can become our partner in philanthropy.
- Silver Sponsor — Thrivent Financial (Matt Buehrer)
- Bronze Sponsors —Evans Title, J & L Wood Products, Monroe Federal, New Carlisle Federal Savings Bank,
Park National Bank, Pickrel, Schaeffer & Ebeling, Sibcy Cline – Jackie Halderman, John J. Skolnicki, CPA,
Tipp Eye Center - Friend Sponsors — Captor Corporation, Edward Jones – Neil Nehring, Frings & Bayliff Funeral Home, Greenville Federal, Minster Bank, Turnstone Financial, US Bank
- Media Sponsor — Tippecanoe Gazette
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