January 16, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Thanks to a $24,000 from the McCormick Foundation, 24 elementary students from one of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods are traveling to Washington to see the historical inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama and take in the sights.
The so-called DC 24 are 5th and 6th graders from Frazier Preparatory Academy and they will spend four days in the nation’s capital, visiting museums, Arlington National Cemetery, and even attending an inaugural ball.
The students, who were selected last summer for their good grades and other criteria, have been taking special classes on civics and government to prepare for the trip. (They even made flashcards to memorize the positions and names of members of the incoming administration).
In addition to helping pay for the trip, the McCormick Foundation, whose headquarters are in Chicago, is providing the kids with laptop computers and digital camcorders to document their trip on a Web site, www.sharemyinauguration.com.
McCormick isn’t the only grant maker helping someone get to the Washington festivities.
The Case Foundation is paying the travel expenses for the winner of its “Change Begins with Me” contest, in which contestants committed to do some type of volunteer work.
The winner, who was picked at random from 10,000 entries, was Gerald Jimenez, of Boston, according to Case’s Web site. Mr. Jimenez is a mentor for Citizen Schools, a Boston group that operates afterschool programs.
He pledged “[t]o empower. To change. To motivate. Giving all the heart, all the creativity, the resources and the lifelong education invested in me towards the development of inner-city youth through the arts.”
