Colby Sanders’ journey through a service-learning grant writing course taught him the value of engaging in the community.

Sanders came from a coaching background with little experience in grant writing. In the fall of 2024, alongside fellow graduate student Katherine Whitaker, Sanders helped develop a grant application for Missouri State’s vision screening program. The program has provided free vision screenings (using high-tech vision screening cameras) to over 105,000 individuals during the past 10 years. Their team effort in supporting an important health initiative (access to healthcare) highlights MSU’s commitment to community-engaged student scholarship at the graduate level.

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There are a lot of stories about undergraduate students taking the plunge into service-learning. Of course, they often come out of it thriving and confident. We like that. It supports how effective service-learning is at reinforcing skills and preparing young people for future professions.

But what about the growing number of students who have already spent years as professionals. They’re the ones who want to take their careers to the next level Does service-learning have the same power? Does it mean as much for grads who already have a lot of soft skills and professional knowledge?

That’s where Colby Sanders’ story comes in.

Sanders was a cross-country and track runner at Southwest Baptist University. He’s tall, slim, and a version of athletic that makes me think he could run a marathon before I could finish a single bicep curl. I asked him about his background and what led him to taking graduate courses at Missouri State and he got right to the point: “I earned my bachelor’s degree in marketing from SBU in Bolivar, but I really struggled to find a job afterward. Everywhere I looked, employers wanted at least a few years of experience.”

He stared at me smiling, patiently waiting for the next question. I fumbled through my notes.

It usually takes a bit longer in a conversation to get someone to describe their discomforting challenges with the job market. But if Sanders is anything, he’s sincere and authentic.

He continued: “I made a great connection with the head cross country coach at Central High School, and he offered me a job as a [coaching assistant]—I took it. He noticed I was struggling to find work outside of coaching, so he talked to some people at Central, and I ended up getting a job that wasn’t related to my degree at all. I’m just grateful to have something. That experience made me realize that business marketing might not be the right path for me, so I decided to go back to school. Now I’m in the MPS [Master of Professional Students] program here [at Missouri State], focusing on Sports Management.”

Students in the MPS program are presented with a series of options for courses through their program. The concept is that they’re already working in a professional setting and should be able to make choices on classes that they know will benefit their current and future careers the best. Most of the courses are available online. Grant Writing is one of the options for the core classes in the program. Group work is a big component.

Sanders leaned in and lowered his voice as he told me he was late signing up for a group. It wasn’t entirely certain he would make it on one, meaning mountains of work for just one person. There was just one group left to pick from, which also happened to have only one other student, who also happened to be a graduate student in the MPS program and Missouri State staff member: Katherine Whitaker.*

So, Sanders finally had a group. Which is great, because by this point, John Turner had made it clear that students would be writing a “real” grant. As in, they were to select a cause, find funders, and develop a proposal that would be submitted in an attempt to win a grant. The English department’s Dr. Rhonda Stanton previously had a lot of success teaching her grant writing students with this style of service-learning.

Sanders and Whitaker ultimately chose to write a grant about Missouri State’s vision screening program, operated by Dr. Kathy Nordyke right here at Missouri State’s Citizenship & Service-Learning (CASL) office. The program supports vision health in the Ozarks by taking high-tech, highly portable medical equipment into schools, daycares, and community centers to check people (mostly children) for a variety of optical issues.

I wanted to know why Sanders agreed to work on a grant for the vision program. After all, it’s a weighty assignment and required digging into new territory for him. Turns out, he had a personal connection to the subject that made it compelling.

When Sanders was young, he struggled to learn:

“I kept getting terrible grades and was sitting toward the back of the class, thinking, ‘What’s going on? Why am I failing some of these classes?’ Then one day, my teacher asked, ‘Can you see the board clearly?’ I was caught off guard—I’d never even considered that might be the issue. She suggested I get my vision checked, so I went home and told my parents. Sure enough, I needed a strong prescription. It made a huge difference. …And it’s great to see how much something like that can help other people too.”

So, Sanders and Whitaker got to work. First, they needed to find a potential funder, an essential step in guiding the direction of the grant proposal. Despite a large number of funders across the country willing to disperse funds to improve the vision health of children, this was easier said than done.

And Sanders was already well out of his sports management element:

“It was definitely challenging at times to find the right people. We looked into [a famous eye care] foundation and tried to learn more about them, but it was hard to find clear information. …It really took some research—digging into company websites, trying to find the right contacts, and figuring out who might be the best fit. Eventually, we connected with the Centene Corporation. What really made that partnership work was how well our mission for vision screenings aligned with the values of the Centene Foundation.”

They researched. They wrote.

John Turner mercifully reserves a solid chunk of the semester for students working on their final proposal. Along the way, Sanders started to feel confident in what he and Whitaker had.

That’s when he got a tough lesson in how grant writing works:

“When we put together our first rough draft, I thought, Man, this looks pretty good. I don’t have much background in grants, so I wasn’t sure what a good one was supposed to look like, but I felt like we did well. Then we turned it in and got it back—with a lot of corrections from our professor. I remember thinking, Wow, this is more critical than I expected. But we took the feedback, went back, and made the necessary changes.”

Sanders wasn’t used to cohesively mixing persuasive writing and technical writing. It’s one of the things that makes grant writing so difficult. But he kept at it. He had found success as a long-distance runner, so it made sense that he started to view the grant project as a marathon instead of a sprint.

Sanders was also able to learn and stay humble through constructive criticism:

“I thought the process was pretty tough—figuring out how to word things and finding the right people to work with. It was definitely a challenge. I remember thinking, Unless your heart’s in the right place, this is really hard. “Our professor even said during one of our class discussions, ‘This isn’t for everybody. It’s meticulous work. It takes a lot of research.’ And I was like, Yeah, you’re absolutely right. But he also said, ‘At the end, when you have that finished product and you can look back and say this is really something, that’s what makes grant writing worth it.’”

There were some big hurdles to deal with to get to that finished product. He was honest that he did not enjoy grant research and writing during the first part of the class. It wasn’t until he was in the group setting and had a legitimate goal with real-life potential outcomes that things started to click. In CASL, we’ve found this is common for a lot of students. Sanders started with one perspective and by the end of the semester it had changed due to the applicability of the work.

“I started to realize that, as an athletic director, I’d be reaching out for funding and support all the time—for equipment, programs, facility upgrades, and so on,” Sanders reflected. “That’s when my appreciation for the course went way up. It wasn’t just another assignment or another week to get through—this was actually preparing me for something I’d need in my career. So honestly, the group project was a turning point for me.”

There was another personal connection that helped Sanders keep going during the moments it was a slog. At the time of the course, his little girl, Lila, was under six months old. He had known from a young age that he didn’t have the best vision. He said his wife’s eyesight was great. Still, he still worried about his daughter’s vision because genetics can often be unkind. When he found out the vision screening equipment that the program uses can detect abnormalities as young as six months old, it hit close to home.

Realizing that a service-learning project will apply to one’s future professional endeavors can be really powerful for students. For Sanders, realizing that there was a program out there that could accurately detect vision issues in a squirming baby girl was a revelation.

Since the course, Sanders has become more mindful about community issues and resource distribution. He explained that the challenges of finding grant funds for a community of Springfield’s size made him think about the monumental efforts it takes to secure funding for a smaller place:

“Dr. Nordyke mentioned that they conduct [vision] screenings in West Plains, which is where I’m from—and I thought that was really cool. Before we chose the Centene Foundation, I started looking into organizations that also focus on smaller communities, because I know how important that is. It’s great that bigger cities like Springfield have resources, but if smaller towns like West Plains get overlooked, that’s tough for people who really need vision care. So, realizing that the vision screening program reaches my hometown meant a lot.”

I appreciate Sanders’s willingness to talk to us about his journey. He made it through a service-learning course that covered unfamiliar subject matter for him. That’s tough for anyone. But where Sanders ended up is a great example of how community-engaged learning is capable of some truly transformative experiences.

 

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_{*Disclosure: Sanders’ group partner, Katherine Whitaker, is married to me, Charlie Whitaker: author of this story, devoted puzzle partner, and occasional ride to work.}