Dartmouth's chapter of the national non-profit, founded in the spring by Haley Morris '08 and Lindsay Greenberg '08, is geared toward helping local, under-resourced high school students during the college admissions process by pairing them with undergraduate students.
Dartmouth's LGR may be short-lived, however, due to its inability to find enough funding on campus. Each chapter must raise $6,500 independently of the national organization to function, but Dartmouth's LGR has been unable to do so through College resources.
LGR was turned down by COSO for recognition, without which the program was unable to apply for COSO funding. According to board member Derek Weiss '09, community service projects do not fall under COSO's mission statement.
"The structure of funding at Dartmouth is set up so that the Tucker Foundation has the resources, experience and mission of working with community-service organizations," Weiss said. "This is, in my mind, the perfect example of a program that should be funded by Tucker."
The Tucker Foundation, however, was unable to provide sufficient support for LGR.
Jan Tarjan '74, associate dean and director of community services at the Tucker Foundation, said that Greenberg and she "talked about pros and cons of joining Tucker."
After several meetings discussing a potential partnership, LGR's founders were told that "maybe it wasn't the best direction for us," Morris said.
The two women were welcomed to apply for funding, but it was made known that LGR was the most expensive program to come through Tucker, and that they could not be guaranteed funding.
The Tucker Foundation told Greenberg that their resources are not exclusively for community service.
"They don't have enough money to be the sole source of funding for community service on campus, they said. They do reject programs," Greenberg said. "It's just unfortunate that ours had to be one that couldn't get enough money."
Additionally, the increased bureaucracy of Tucker would be a setback to LGR, which does not need another advisor, Morris said.
"We tend to agree with Tucker's advice. The rigidness and bureaucracy of Tucker -- as well as their reluctance to fund our $6,500 gap -- is not the right partnership for LGR," she said. In the end, LGR did not apply to Tucker for funding, but both women are convinced that Tucker would not have been able to supply enough money.
Although the Tucker Foundation it is not the only source of funding on campus for community service, Morris and Greenberg are unsure of where else to look for money.
"We're just really disappointed, because Dartmouth has a long-standing history and tradition of community service, and we don't understand why there's nowhere for us to fit in," Morris said.
Currently, the program is not only without a source of permanent funding, but it is also not College recognized, without which the women do not have access to college resources such as BlitzMail lists or GreenPrint services. For the time being, "Let's Get Ready" national is funding Dartmouth's chapter, but the money is contingent upon finding another source for funding soon.
"They're assuming that Dartmouth will recognize us because it is the only Ivy League without an official LGR chapter," Morris said.
The lack of funding for LGR raises the question of what a newly founded group should do when it is unable to find enough money to function. LGR will appeal to the Office of Admissions next, on the advice of Assistant Director of Financial Aid Vicki Bacon-Husband.
"This program is so necessary to this area, far more than anyone realizes," Bacon-Husband said. "I think it might fall under the area of admissions. There must be grants or something -- this program is too good to let fall through the cracks,"
Morris and Greenberg hope that this is the case.
"We think there's a huge need in the Upper Valley, and we'd love for Let's Get Ready to endure," Greenberg said. "We can't do that without recognition or funding, though."
