Week 8 at ETSS Tewahedo Social Services is finished, and I cannot believe there are only two weeks left until the Youth Summit! Event planning is fully underway, with many meetings to finalize every aspect of the day. I have been finalizing our catering orders and negotiating discounts with restaurants, using a grant we received this summer to order ETSS-branded book tote bags as goodie bags, and checking on our volunteer platform, where roles are being snapped up. I participated in a meeting of the Youth Council to hear about our student representatives’ experiences and suggestions for ETSS programming in their own words.  

On Tuesday, we held a walk-through of the Youth Summit venue, the Ohio State-Central Ohio Technical College campus in Newark. We talked through the schedule, and I took down room assignments for workshops and seating arrangements. It was a wonderful chance to meet representatives from many of our community partners who are holding workshops, such as the Port Authority, Columbus Museum of Art, and the Audobon Center. I had also never visited the beautiful OSU-COTC campus.  

Because of our unexpected funding changes, I’ve doubled down on grant applications to secure funding for the Youth Department. Submissions require director approval, and I have to request information such as line-item budget breakdowns and demographics to answer many of the questions, so it is a slow process. This week I applied for another grant, as well as working on several applications that the Youth Department will be able to submit in the fall after I leave ETSS.  

This Friday, I visited our site at Sullivant Elementary School, which hosted a cultural exchange day with the students from Whitehall. They performed a song (“Count on Me” by Bruno Mars, a personal favorite), showed off their Ethiopian and Central American garb in a fashion show, played basketball and soccer, hit a piñata, and made new friends while learning about each other’s culture. Thoroughly adorable!  

 Until next week,

Sanay