NAYA Gala

Last night, I was fortunate to attend the Gala for the Native American Youth Association in Portland. It was a fundraiser and the Office of Community and Diversity at OSU paid for a table of ten - each plate was $125. Kinda rich for my blood. But I decided to go. The director of NAYA, Nicole Maher, is an OSU alumnus and she was in one or two of my classes, so I hoped to see her as I haven't seen her in several years. I really can't say that I had much influence on her career path; she's accomplished this on her own. But I'm still proud of her.

I have to say, I'm really proud of her and what she's been able to accomplish at that organization. It's grown tremendously in the last year or two - they were successful at getting a Gates Foundation grant to help Native American kids with academic help. The grant was pretty successful, so much so that NAYA was featured in the Gates Foundation Annual Report for 2007.

I saw at a table with the President of OSU and his wife and the director of Community and Diversity. There were also several students from OSU at the table. I had a really nice time. I was able to say hi to Nicole and then the Sustainability Officer at NAYA is a woman, Chris Dupres, I worked with on another grant project a few years ago. All in all, a good evening.

I really do love my job. I sometimes get problem students and I dislike the administrative stuff. But watching Nicole reminded me of what my work is all about. Congratulations on a successful event, Nicole!

Cool, huh?