The Schoolhouse South Africa Communications Team had two more victories this month for sponsorships! The Cornell Council for the Arts (CCA) grant will support our Schoolhouse South Africa exhibition called Design, Build, Design. The PepsiCo sponsorship will be used to print the Schoolhouse South Africa book, led by editors Jeff Johnson ’15, Lexi Quint ’13, Allie Riggs ’13, and Emily Schuit ’14. We are now two steps closer to meaningfully concluding Schoolhouse South Africa.
Allie Riggs, our CUSD Communications team member who worked on the Cornell Council for the Arts (CCA) grant tells us a little about her work compiling the grant. Additionally, Allie was mentioned in the Cornell Chronicle here: “CCA Grant Competition.”
I had first heard about CCA Grants from a professor of mine who has been involved in the Council for the Arts organization. She explained to me that these grants looked for an interdisciplinary approach to design, contemporary art, and architecture. So when I found out that CUSD would be applying for our Schoolhouse South Africa exhibition, I was more than happy to take on the task. For the grant, we needed to come up with a “resume,” a 500 word description of the project, a budget, and images of what our exhibition would depict. My tasks were to coordinate with various factions of CUSD, compile these necessary items, write a comprehensive description, and meet with our faculty advisor Professor Dave Schneider to sign off on the final draft. At the end of the process, I compiled all of the relevant materials (such as photographs, press clippings, our mission statement, and an outline of the SSA project) into a large document that would provide an in depth description of our goals. The budget had to be revised slightly to achieve the specified award of $1,000, but I am now pleased to say that we have been granted this amount to create an exhibition in early March of 2012.
-Allie Riggs ’13, CUSD Communications Team
On the other hand, my teammates (Eliana Krishenblat ’15 and Kathy Li (grad)) and I worked on the PepsiCo 2011 Sponsorship Competition and received $500 for the Schoolhouse South Africa book.
Five Cornell project teams and faculties, including CUSD, entered the competition for the fund, answering the question: How will the PepsiCo Sponsorship make a difference for your project team?
With amazing inspirations from Chi-Chi and Kai, we decided to make a video with still-shots of physically writing our answer on a dry-erase board. It features the process of the SSA project and the purpose of our book. All three of us as directors, actors (featuring our beautiful hands, handwriting, and doodles) and editors, we strung up 300+ still-shots into a 2:33 minutes video.
On a Friday night, we took all of the still-shots in the basement of Upson Hall, right outside of “the cage.” On a huge dry-erase board wall, we drew, wrote, taped up photos, and took still-shots every few seconds. It took a lot of hard work, but all in all, it paid off in the end.
PepsicoGrant from CUSD SSA on Vimeo.
So, thanks to our sponsors, and great work, group!!
I’m not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never consider money. Beautiful things earn money.
Meetings are indispensable once you don’t want to do anything whatsoever.