Last month, Chase Community Giving, a corporate philanthropy program, awarded two grants totaling $62,000 to ReadySetLaunch, a college mentoring program for underprivileged students.
ReadySetLaunch, founded by freshmen at Brown and Yale last year, "provides college advising to students around the country from disadvantaged backgrounds who cannot afford professional college counselors," according to a recent press release from the group.
Maya Bretzius '12, co-founder of Brown's chapter, said the group is still deciding how to use the grant.
"Since ReadySetLaunch is a program which uses the Internet to connect its mentors and mentees, the money will most likely go toward providing mentees with webcams or basic laptops," Bretzius said. "Potentially, it will be used to subsidize college visits and SAT and ACT testing for the students."
Victor Vu '12, the Brown chapter's other co-founder, said mentoring "is immediately gratifying, and the new means of communication which are now available to us make a wider population of students accessible."
"The program is a reminder not to discredit technology; it is a tool to serve," Bretzius said.
Chase Community Giving held an online poll open to all Facebook users to select grant recipients — and Bretzius and Vu used their familiarity with the Internet to their advantage. The team campaigned on Facebook and AIM to garner votes for the grant, Bretzius said.
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