Dear (Name if you have it, “Sir/Madam” if not)
Urgent Grant Request
Life knowledge and its application are acquired – in each and every respect – via a form of education. That has always been the case. A quotation attributed to the Chinese philosopher Confucius (551-479 BC) advised: “If your plan is for one year plant rice. If your plan is for ten years plant trees. If your plan is for one hundred years educate children.” That philosophy, emphasizing the tremendous importance of education in planning for our longer term future, is every bit as true today as it was over two thousand years ago – probably more so in this rapidly evolving technological age, in which “standing still” is not an option.
In part for that reason, I believe passionately and sincerely in higher education. I am married with four children, of whom three are in college and the fourth graduated last May (2012). Putting them through college has taken major effort on the part of me and my husband, but we both feel that by putting in every effort now, we are quite simply investing in their future.
However, the general economic downturn and its effects on our family’s finances mean that we have reached a crisis point. To provide some detail on that, I have operated a childcare business for the last 18 years, but my client numbers have dwindled as people struggle to pay for childcare, resulting in just one child to care for over the last year, which of course has drastically reduced my income from that business. I am also a real estate agent, but that too brings in very little in this horrible time for the property market. My husband fortunately still has his job but he makes nowhere near enough to allow us to continue to fund the college tuition fees.
We so desperately want to allow our children the opportunity to complete their higher education, but cannot manage to do so without additional financial aid in the form of a grant. The specifics of the need which involves two of our children are that our daughter is going to be a senior in Siena College and our son is going to be a sophomore at the University of Maryland.
We are a proud American family and would not be asking for help if we had not already tried just about every other way of meeting these college costs. We have not had a proper vacation for the last four years; two years back we downsized to just the one secondhand car (my husband has to have a car to get to work); we have trimmed away just about every non-essential household overhead cost; we shop at the budget supermarkets and thrift stores; our kids all have part-time jobs; we have even considered putting our beloved pet Labrador up for adoption! Unfortunately, there is still a shortfall – the numbers just won’t add up for us.
Because we have until now always paid our own way and never needed or asked for help, we are quite honestly not sure of the process for requesting or obtaining a grant to ensure our kids can complete their higher education; I am hoping you can guide us through the procedure to obtain the grant funding that means so much to us. We are confident that our great country will come through this economic crisis and that we too, as a family, can look forward to better times; we just need help right now to give our children the education they deserve, which will not only benefit them but the country in the future, as a better-educated workforce will help this nation recover to become a world-leading economy once again. I look forward to your favorable reply.
