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Students receive grant for competition

HANCOCK — Career Technical Education students in the Copper Country Intermediate School District’s Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) will attend Upper Peninsula regional competitions in January, thanks in part to a $2,000 grant from the Portage Health Auxiliary. One of the things that makes this grant special, however, is that the students helped to write the request, which they had to learn as they went.

“That’s one thing I thought was really cool,” Amanda Hermanson, said, “is that (the) students were like: ‘What is a grant? I don’t even know what that is.’ I had to teach and explain that process to them. ‘I don’t even know what to write.’ Write why you think you need this money, or what you’re going to use it for. You’re going to convince them that you guys are a worthy cause. And they did just that.”

Those students who qualify in the top three in a competition of their choice in Marquette, will qualify to enter the state competition downstate. But travel and related costs accumulate quickly.

“The total amount to go to the regional conference, if all of our students go, is $5,100, for bus and for the day to go to Marquette conference, and then going downstate the conference fees are $75 a student and then the bus and hotel,” Hermanson said.

HOSA doesn’t always receive a grant, so its CCISD CTE members also work to raise money.

“There’s no funding for HOSA, other than our fundraising. So, if we don’t receive a grant, then we do all the fundraising,” Hermanson said. “This year we sold chocolates, first-aid kits, candles, pasty sales.”

“p1″>”Pop can drives we did last year, and rummage sales,” said Lorie Maki,  fellow CTE teacher for Health Careers at CCISD.

George Stockero, superintendent at the CCISD is impressed with the CTE program, as well as its students.

“It was just neat to me that the kids helped write this grant,” he said. “The kids were very involved from the beginning.”

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