Speaker: Hannah Romel, Teacher, Gaylord High School
Tell us a little about your organization and why you applied for a grant from the OCF.
Hannah Romel: From the beginning of my time in Gaylord. specifically my time at Gaylord High School, I have always wanted to ensure that my students get the most recent and relevant experience that I can possibly give them. I want to provide for them a way to use up and coming technologies to further themselves and further their careers. Whether they continue on in, in college or go right into the workforce or into a trade school. I applied for the grant because I desperately wanted to give my students something that we can get it on the ground floor of, By introducing them to drones and drone flights and becoming part 107 FAA certified is really gonna be able to jump start jumpstart some of their careers. There are very few people in the United States that are part 107 certified and to be able to give my students something that they can use to make money on and have a career on immediately. upon passing the test and gaining the certification was something that really meant a lot to me. And something I knew that we could give our students easily with, with, uh, I mean, a large, but a, a fairly small amount of money but something that I knew would be useful to our community and useful to our students.
How will this OCF grant make a difference?
Hannah Romel: As of right now, I myself am getting the training um, that I need to teach this class and getting ready to take my drone pilot FAA part 107 certification test. Um I can already see how much this is going to impact our students and our community. I'm so excited for them to be able to be in on something that is just starting to gain traction, specifically in northern Michigan. for so long people have done this, you know, as a hobby or as a little side project and to be an actual certified drone pilot and to be able to go out and make money and have a business for it, I think is, is incredibly important. Um I think that this is gonna impact our community because it's gonna give our students one more outlet for them to be able to jumpstart their careers and to jumpstart their future without having to go to college or, you know, gives them more options and there are so many facets that you can use, drone flights in and I just really think that it's gonna open up the world for a lot of different students.
How was your experience working with the OCF?
Hannah Romel: I have loved working with everybody. so far at the Otsego Community Foundation and all of their partners in funding and everything. to see the excitement that I have matched in the people who have helped get me to this point is, is so beyond compare, I it really has driven me forward to try to make this the best program that I possibly can. And even though it's such in the beginning stages to continue to grow it and to make it something that our community and our community foundation can definitely be proud of.
