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Steamboat Springs — After being rejected by the Education Fund Board its first time around, Community Cultivation's proposal will appear again tonight in front of the full board but with only half the amount of money requested.

The group, a vocational skills course for disadvantaged youths in Routt County, originally requested $10,000 for tuition and services, but when the Fund Board voted to keep $1 million in reserves, members also voted to reject the proposal, along with two other community projects.

The decision of what to fund with $50,000 in allocated monies was kicked back to the Educational Excellence Committee. That group originally put forward the Community Cultivation program and again forwarded the group's request for this meeting.

"We went and presented again and just spoke on our program and asked them to reconsider and keep us in the running and they voted us (forward)," said Beth Davison, one of the creators of Community Cultivation.

Davison said the group still is only halfway to its goal of $30,000 for the year and that funding has been hard to come by during the economic slump.

"Unfortunately, there haven't been any major funding developments" since the last time they appeared before the board, she said. The group received $1,000 from an Impact 100 grant from the Yampa Valley Community Foundation, but other sources of funding have fallen through even as the group is planning to expand program capacity.

"Will it continue to go on if it continues like this? Maybe not. We may not be able to have as many people," she said.

The Fund Board also will consider second-reading requests for $50,000 in staff development in the Steamboat Springs School District. First requests will be heard for $16,244 for technology in the South Routt School District and $6,750 for the Steamboat Springs Youth Orchestra. The Fund Board does not vote on first readings but asks questions to be answered at second readings.