Bettendorf, Iowa  -- Thirty-five students from 10 Quad City area high schools will grant $10,000 to charitable organizations serving Rock Island and Scott counties. Applications should be postmarked by March 1, 2012 and can be downloaded from the Teens for Tomorrow web page.

The youth are members of Teens for Tomorrow (T4T), a philanthropic initiative of the Community Foundation of the Great River Bend.

“The T4T program teaches high school students about the important work nonprofits do and some lessons about leadership and philanthropy that will last a lifetime,” said Susan Skora, President and CEO of the Community Foundation.

During the nine-month T4T program, students from high schools in the Iowa and Illinois Quad Cities learn about the role nonprofits play in the community. They work together to identify community needs and explore the grant making process. Students make site visits to nonprofits, discuss their findings and make grant decisions. At the end of the year, they distribute T4T grants to local nonprofits.

In 2010, through the Herb and Arlene Elliott Endowment, Teens for Tomorrow became a permanent program of the Foundation and now grants $10,000 annually to local nonprofit organizations.

“Each year, as they get more involved in the application process and make the site visits, the teens begin to see the good that nonprofits do in the community, and they begin to care more than they expected when the school year began,” Skora continued. “I love to see the growth these teens experience every year, and I look forward to seeing the decisions they make about the grants.”

Grant applications must be postmarked by March 1, 2012 and submitted to the Community Foundation of the Great River Bend, 852 Middle Road, Ste 100, Bettendorf, IA 52722.

For more information about Teens for Tomorrow, contact the Foundation’s Youth Initiatives Advocate, Susan Parker at (563) 326-2840 or susanparker@cfgrb.org.

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