2009 End of Year Report
To: Friends of the Marjot Foundation
From: Carol L. Reinisch, President and Morton T. Saunders, Chair, Board of Trustees
Re: 2010 plans and 2009 successes
Date: 1 December 2009
So many of you have asked me the same question: Who, exactly, are MARJOT scholars? What do they do for projects? Where do they go the college? Therefore I decided to highlight one of the highly successful projects we have funded over the last several years to answer some of these queries.
Kvehl McDermott, Maya von Wodtke and Eliza Warren-Shriner (Brattleboro, VT) applied for funding to study the impact of snow making on soil quality in southern Vermont Their project was reviewed by the Science Advisory Board (SAB) and recommended for funding. The SAB also helped them shape their work, once the funding was secured. Out they went in the field, collecting samples from multiple sites over the course of 10 months. They completed their research and headed to the Vermont science fair ending up with gold medals, grants and citations. The enclosed photo was taken at our mini science fair held at Tufts Veterinary School. (Left to right: Eliza Shriner, Bowdoin, Kvehl McDermott, University of New Hampshire and Maya von Wodtke, Middlebury). August Oddleifson and Jean Thomae had their peer-reviewed paper “Biofilm and Enterococcus in Cohasset Harbor accepted by the New England Environment Association for publication. I could cite many more wonderful examples.
Marjot is now in its 11th year of operation and on target to fund a minimum of four teams in 2010 at a total cost of $18,000. We will send out RFPs (requests for proposals) in January with a deadline of 1 April 2010. For the first time, we have a Falmouth High School student, Lian Folger, who just presented her work to the trustees at our annual meeting. Lian is on track to submit her work to the science fair, and given what we heard, we know she will do well.
We intend to target schools from the Cape and Islands in 2010 because many donors have indicated an interest in funding high school students from this area. As well, we will be seeking applications from Pennsylvania due to a significant restricted corporate gift. We will also continue to seek proposals from students in Massachusetts and Vermont as we have before.
Breaking news from Marjot is that Elaine Gorman, Ametek Corporation; Paoli, PA was elected to the Board at our annual meeting. Elaine joins another new trustee, James Johnson, Falmouth, Mass. elected earlier during 2009. Both are very welcome additions and bring new strengths to our foundation. We also thank Charles Bergmann Jr (Skip) who has rotated off the Board for all his enthusiastic help especially in the early years of our organization.
On behalf of the Chair and the Board of Trustees, but most importantly, our scholars, we thank all of you for your continuing support.