Re: Vote For F.I.R.S.T.
 

As of today, FIRST has 30% , Citizen Schools 18%

Keep voting ! $200K could fund an entire new regional !
http://www.takepart.com/membersproject/vote

Re: Vote For F.I.R.S.T.
 

As of today, FIRST has 26%, Jumpstart for Young Children has 19% (Citizen Schools has 18%). Keep voting! :)

Re: Vote For F.I.R.S.T.
 

Thanks for the reminder.

Re: Vote For F.I.R.S.T.
 

The gap is closing quickly, FIRST - 25% , Jumpstart - 20%

Keep voting and set weekly reminders to vote!

Re: Vote For F.I.R.S.T.
 

Just a reminder: this isn't (supposed to be) a contest to see who can out-vote the others.

Think very carefully about what you're supporting, and its impact. Also consider who really needs the money, and why.

Jumpstart is a very well-regarded program, and serves a purpose that could easily be considered more important than FIRST's. Why? Because they're targeting a demographic—very young children—who are the most impressionable and receptive to all forms of education and mentorship. (Money spent to improve their literacy will probably be more effective at increasing scholastic aptitude and intellectual curiosity than money spent on high school students.) With their overall focus on low-income areas, they're also directing funding toward students who are least likely to be able to obtain this sort of support through other means.

Citizen Schools sounds reasonably promising and deserving as well; though by targeting middle schools, they don't have the fundamental advantage that Jumpstart does.

On the other hand, maybe you're of the opinion that education should be the focus of the schools themselves, and the schools receive sufficient public (or private) funding for that purpose already. (I'm just throwing that out as a strawman....) Perhaps in that case, it would be more immediately valuable to inspire a minority of students into becoming a scientifically-literate elite that can more effectively address technical problems. (That technocracy is a large part of what FIRST aims for.)

It's not an open-and-shut case, and those are just examples from education policy. There are plenty of other organizations on that TakePart page that do good, useful work in other areas (though a couple are a little out of place among the serious contributors listed there). Maybe there's another cause in another category that needs your vote more than FIRST does? Are American domestic issues more worthy of funding than multinational or global ones? But also consider that some of the options available are enormous international charities; will $200 000 really make a difference to them?

This isn't to say that FIRST shouldn't receive funding—because it's clearly got a useful purpose. But you have to decide for yourselves whether this chunk of education funding is best allocated to FIRST, or to another worthy organization.

(This reminds me a little of the Google 10¹⁰⁰ project—which appears to have stalled for the last several months.)

Re: Vote For F.I.R.S.T.
 

Are many of you jst voting for first because you're a part of it? Read Tristan's full post please, he wrote it very well and addresses the same issues that myself and a few others discussed a few weeks back about the other tiny 9000 dollar grant. my conversation witha highly respected FRC mentor on here:

Re: Vote For F.I.R.S.T.
 

You almost had me. Thank you, Tristan and Akash, for the great points and for stating some of the concerns that have been floating around in my head.

What has decided it for me is that I know FIRST personally, or at least as a mentor. I have seen the effect it has on almost all the kids that participate. I very much hope that the opportunity to join a FIRST team becomes available to more than a minority of students and that most students understand the opportunities FIRST presents.

While I agree that there are many deserving organizations on the list, some perhaps more deserving than FIRST, I have decided to continue voting for FIRST, and I plan on e-mailing my team to make sure they all know of the voting.

Re: Vote For F.I.R.S.T.
 

FIRST is only 2 percentage points away from the next competitior on AMEX #200K Challenge.
Cast your Vote Now!
Please make time this week, next week and through August to keep voting on the AMEX/Members Project…the gap has narrowed and FIRST is now only 2% points ahead in the Education category. Some groups have employed costly ($10K) apps to assist them…FIRST is trying to mobilize the community to assist. Voting ends on August 22, 2010 for this round.

What is the potential for FIRST…

- $200k to the organization

- a possible 30-second nationwide TV commercial

Thanks for your continued voting,

cheryl Walsh
Marketing

Link is:

http://www.takepart.com/membersproject/vote

Re: Vote For F.I.R.S.T.
 

Recently our school (wanting to build a new weight room) applied for the Pepsi Refresh Everything project 200k. I was really torn over, voting for a new weight room that our school doesn’t really need or voting for new foster homes or for cancer research. I finally decided to vote for what i though was the more worthy cause...not the weight room. Then i saw that first was up for a similar amount of money/project and i was torn…I really wanted to support first, what i love, but didn’t want to send mixed messages to other people. So i simply just don’t vote anymore :rolleyes:

Re: Vote For F.I.R.S.T.
 

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/20...r-grant-money/

Some interesting food for thought from an article in the New York Times - Should funding be a popularity contest?

Re: Vote For F.I.R.S.T.
 

Funding should not be a popularity contest.

FIRST is losing ground 24% to 22% for jumpstart

Re: Vote For F.I.R.S.T.
 

FIRST is now tied with Jumpstart.

Re: Vote For F.I.R.S.T.
 

First is now losing to Jumpstart, 34% to 35% :(

Re: Vote For F.I.R.S.T.
 

FIRST won for its category, now its going against the other winners of there section to see who gets the $200,000

Re: Vote For F.I.R.S.T.
 

As much as I wish it were true, I read the site differently. I beleive Jumpstart for Young Children beat FIRST. Now we are onto the next round which closes in November. They keep all the same charities except the winner and the charity that got the least amount of votes and add two more.

That means that those of us who have been voting every week will need to do so again until November 29th.