As the wife of the owner (Michael Gituma), I bring my experiences of volunteerism and nonprofit mindedness to help The Simba Shop be an example in the world of business of the importance of putting to practice social and economic responsibility at a local level.

I helped to put toghether a strategic plan, marketing plan, and budget. I also wrote and managed the Strengthen Rural Iowa capacity building grant. I assisted with filing for the IRS 501c3 tax exempt status for the organization which was approved.

-data entry-tracking participants from trainings-write quarterly reports for grants-manage multiple grants from Early Childhood Iowa-communicate with consultants and co-workers to fit the budget with the activities based on our grants

I studied Business Leadership principles and implemented what I learned into my capstone project. My project took my positive youth development training from AmeriCorps and combined it into the skate park project. Using a business model, I was able to lead youth toward making ethical, positive choices in order to show their community that they could be responsible enough to deserve having a community skate park while at the same time emphasizing the value youth have on the future of our community and ultimately of our world.

I recruited youth to participate in recreation programs such as baseball, football, and soccer. I also assisted leadership with launching a successful youth led skate park project. With help I implemented 2 new special needs programs. One of the new programs was a junior golf program and the other was Special Olympics Young Athletes. I helped to create partnerships with multiple organizations and was able to bring people with diverse backgrounds together to accomplish a common goal.