{"id":157530,"date":"2025-03-17T09:55:22","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T13:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=157530"},"modified":"2026-03-24T14:09:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T18:09:17","slug":"wright-state-senior-katherine-dillard-tunes-up-local-churchs-audio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2025\/03\/17\/wright-state-senior-katherine-dillard-tunes-up-local-churchs-audio\/","title":{"rendered":"Wright State senior Katherine Dillard tunes up local church\u2019s audio"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Katherine Dillard, a senior anthropology major at Wright State, helped a local church secure funding to purchase hearing assistance technology as part of a Fundraising and Grant Writing course taught by Melissa Spirek, professor of communications. (Photo by Erin Pence)<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s standard in academia that students learn theory in class and apply what they learned once they graduate.<\/p>\n

In a fundraising and grant-writing course last semester, Wright State University senior Katherine Dillard had the good fortune to do both at once. The result: Her classwork led to a $5,000 grant that will help people in a new, small church in her hometown.<\/p>\n

It started when Dillard, who is expected to graduate this spring with a bachelor\u2019s degree in anthropology<\/a>, decided to take a grant-writing course by Melissa Spirek, Ph.D., a professor of communication in the College of Liberal Arts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrant writing is something that could benefit me,\u201d Dillard said, adding she is interested in working with government or with nonprofits, all of which could benefit from fundraising help.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have long-standing involvement with church communities,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The church connection came into play when it was time in class to develop a grant-writing project. Seeking inspiration, Dillard asked her mother for a suggestion. That led her to contact the pastor of her mother\u2019s place of worship, Beloved United Methodist Church, a relatively new church meeting in the Union County Family YMCA gymnasium in Marysville, Ohio.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were members who said they couldn\u2019t hear the service,\u201d Dillard said, citing the gym\u2019s poor acoustics.<\/p>\n

The pastor wanted modern audio technology that individual churchgoers could use with their hearing aids, church-provided headphones or other listening devices to better hear the service.<\/p>\n

Dillard then learned from the pastor that the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church had opened the window for grant applications to fund church needs. Dillard\u2019s project was born, and she dived into research to write and submit the grant to pay for audio equipment.<\/p>\n

The application had to be in the form of a one-minute video, which is where Wright State and Spirek in particular helped.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could write the script,\u201d Dillard said, \u201cbut I needed help to make it look good.\u201d<\/p>\n

After conferring with Spirek, Dillard enlisted the help of the Dunbar Library\u2019s Student Technology Assistance Center, which provides students with tools to create multimedia projects.<\/p>\n

Dillard said Spirek\u2019s motto in grant writing is \u201cWho am I serving and how do I serve them.\u201d She was serving churchgoers who couldn\u2019t hear the service, so a portion of the audio was purposefully muted or altered in sections to give the listener a sense of what the church members experienced.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Spirek said when writing a grant, tell the story of the person you\u2019re trying to serve,\u201d Dillard said.<\/p>\n

Dillard submitted the grant in October and learned in December it was accepted for $5,000, the full amount requested.<\/p>\n

That means, she said, \u201cwe can cover the entire purchase and installation cost and maintenance for the first year and hopefully the next couple of years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dillard said she was thrilled with the success of her class project.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice to say I\u2019ve had success in college outside of coursework,\u201d she said. \u201cDr. Spirek wants us to apply what we learn for the good of the community, and I was able to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spirek said she was not surprised when Dillard\u2019s project was fully funded.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe invests the time necessary to complete deep interviews and this makes her work stand out,\u201d Spirek said. \u201cHer research skills, care and attention to details are why this future grant writer will be in high demand as an employee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dillard has two other takeaways from her experience. One is the importance of mentorship, not only from Spirek but others.<\/p>\n

\u201cMentorship is super important to a student\u2019s success,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The second is as an inspiration to her classmates, that a fellow student such as her with a full course load was able to make a positive difference in her community outside of class.<\/p>\n

Dillard reflected on what led her to Wright State. After earning an associate degree at a regional community college, she looked into where she could pursue a bachelor\u2019s degree. Some schools said matter-of-factly that they would not accept her, she said, but Wright State \u201cwanted a transfer student who wanted to do their best and learn. Every person said yes, come here, we want you. That was really exciting to me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wright State anthropology major Katherine Dillard helped a local church secure funding to purchase hearing assistance technology as part of a Fundraising and Grant Writing course. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":157543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,2025,747,715,4855,4298,2061],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-community-service","category-liberal-arts","category-news","category-social-sciences-and-international-studies","category-student-profile","category-undergraduate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157530"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157551,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157530\/revisions\/157551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}