Janina Manaloto ‘26
Grants at St. Mark’s: Creatively Exploring Passions
Grants are an opportunity for students to explore their interests through the granted school money for a project they want to pursue. Projects may involve travel, research, or a course. There are six different grants, each of which has a different purpose: Class of ‘68 V Form Fellowship, Experiential Project, A.A. Jones Family International Studies, Matthews Fund, Thomas H Kean ‘63 Fellowship, and Warren Scholars. As each of them are for different purposes, it is important to carefully decide what grant to apply for that matches the best with the passion project.
For more details about Grants, you can visit the below Doc. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S5lH8uxqKR7ZX2VUyaILlrV-_5QTu_NvaiUGO8f8rko/edit?tab=t.0
There were exceptionally many passion-driven students who were selected to receive the grants this year and let’s dive into some of their passion projects.
Vivi Tran ‘26 is planning to do a music project with Joanna Ng ‘26 and Ryan Kim ‘26 for the Class of ‘68 V Form Fellowship. She has always been interested in songwriting and producing music, and this grant is the perfect opportunity for her to pursue this passion. She says that “Music has always been a major part of my life. I’ve spent years playing guitar and singing covers of my favorite songs, but I’ve never had the opportunity to explore the creative and technical side of music production. The entire process—writing new lyrics, composing melodies, laying down tracks, and ultimately producing a finished song—always seemed out of reach. This grant gives me the chance to finally be in that world.” Throughout this project, she will explore the technical side of music production and gain deeper insight into what it means to be an artist. Her objective is to take away the skills and experiences from this project and apply them to her music career beyond St. Mark’s.
Isabelle Lee ‘27 is planning to explore sustainable fashion and textiles in Antwerp, Belgium as part of the A.A. Jones grant. This specific grant allows her to have the opportunity to combine her passion for sustainability and fashion on an international scale. In this project, she says that she will “tour Antwerp to explore sustainable textiles and how they are being used in Antwerp’s fashion scene and conduct interviews with storekeepers, designers, and just overall experts in fashion.” Her goal is to host a workshop during family weekend to talk about what she has learned from this experience and explain the significance of sustainable textiles. Her next steps after this project are to host a workshop to raise awareness about this project and to create her own brand where she designs clothes out of sustainable textiles.
