Fund Community-Raised Research Grant During Federal Cuts

Hello, I hope you are doing well!

My name is Sabrina Welch, and I am a high school student who is hosting a walk for peace scheduled for August 16, 2025 at 2:00pm, with the goal of raising $30,000 to create a one time research "grant" to offer an additional opportunity for lab research to earn funding during this time where research is being severely defunded, along with raising awareness about current education-based issues in government. This fundraising link is the place where you can help donate to create this goal of a $30,000 research grant if you would like!

Once the grant money is raised, I am planning to send out a call for research grant applicants, in which we will hold a presentation ceremony for principal investigators seeking funding/researchers/grant applicants to present their work, and have the people of our community/donors vote on which research they would like to chose to receive our grant prize.

From seeing the news of current educational policies being instilled into government such as many federal funding cuts being made to title-1 funding supporting quality education for low income students in Massachusetts and across the nation, the dismantling of the department of education, cuts for funding grants given to universities to enrich their programs, massive funding cuts for research, along with the defunding of PBS kids, the largest educational television network for kids, I truly would love to be able to do something in order to continue supporting the education and academic wellbeing of our community’s children, researchers, and students alike, which has lead me to initiate this walk and this goal of creating a research grant researchers can benefit from!

To put the amount of defunding research has experienced into perspective, the NSF has awarded about $1 billion LESS in new research grants than its 10-year average and terminated over 1,700 active grants worth about $1.4 billion. Ground-breaking research revolving around cancer, Alzheimers, and more that allow for progression towards needed societal solutions has been halted due to federal funding issues.

Please feel free to share this fundraiser, and let's continue to support America's research!

Sincerely,

Sabrina Welch