Take Time Out to Change the World
What would you do if you had a year off to change your life while helping to change the world?
Bishop Joseph Tolton ’89, the 2021 recipient (depicted above), plans to use the grant to start the Pan African Young Adult Leadership Program. The program will bring together 21 activists from Uganda, Rwanda, the Congo, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Haiti, Brazil, Mexico, and the U.S. with the goal of promoting a 21st century global Pan-African movement.
Meet some previous Time Out Grant recipients.
Pablo Elliott ’00, the 2020 recipient is a food-safety and sustainability inspector. His project, the Latitude Movement, is focused on linking community farmers across the same east-west latitudes. He is working to host a summit for farmers and food producers from three continents. Read more
Susan Yacubian Klein ’64, an administrator in education, went to Armenia to work with refugees – and helped the Sharan Crafts Center grow into a thriving exporter of children’s knitwear, employing more than 600 women. Read more
Jane Kramer ’78, a public health policy specialist, studied the oboe, reed-making and music theory – and then founded Enriching Lives Through Music, a nonprofit that provides free music lessons and instruments to children in Hispanic neighborhoods in Marin County, California. Read more
Kathryn Tolbert ’74, a senior editor at the Washington Post, researched the lives of Japanese women who – like her mother – married American GIs after World War II. The resulting Post story and short documentary are being expanded into a longer film and a traveling exhibit. Read more
Moved by his experience caring for his mother, and as a volunteer working with LGBTQ seniors in New York City, William Elfant ’79, a dealer in antiques and fine art, pursued an accelerated Bachelors of Science degree in Nursing – and became a Nurse Practitioner. Read more
Jessica Forysth ’95, a teacher, became Executive Director of The Harold Hunter Foundation – a non-profit organization that offers summer camp scholarships and a network of support, resources, and advocacy for young New York City skateboarders, most of whom come from low-income neighborhoods.
Katherine Yungmee Kim ’93, an editor for a Los Angeles nonprofit whose own family was among the 10 million sealed off from one another by the creation of the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, traveled to the DMZ to write a graphic novel about life there.
Each of these Vassar graduates, and many others over the past three decades, was able to realize a dream that encompassed their own lives and the lives of others, thanks to the Time Out Grant, funded by an extraordinarily generous, anonymous Vassar alumna.
Vassar alumnae/i who have reached their 40th birthday are eligible to apply for the Time Out Grant. Proposals involving innovation and out-of-the-box thinking, with an end goal of significant change, are encouraged. Projects must be designed to span a time frame of at least twelve months. You must be willing to take a full year off from your current endeavors and devote yourself full-time to your project.
Application Process is Closed
The Time Out Grant application process is closed. The application process takes place from September to December of any given year and recipients are notified in April. Check back in September 2021 for application instructions for the 2022 Time Out Grant.