Researcher: Getting funds for a project

This is a long shot but what they hay. I've been working on a HAB project (High altitude balloon) for about 2 years now. As much as I've tried to get the pieces, I haven't had the $$ to buy all I need to get it literally off the ground.

Know money is tight, but interested in diving into the world of education grants. I have a payload designed, and a lot of the items purchased and tweaking with them out of pocket. Hoping, despite my personal setbacks, to get the payload above 30km feet next summer.

This post is 2-fold, as much I wouldn't mind some modest funding to get my bird in the air. It's also a learning lesson on how the funding system works. Where I work could really use computers for various centers dealing with Autism and Aspergers. Figure what I learn I could apply to other education grants to get hardware on a more work-related fashion.

One way or the other I will eventually eat enough Ramen and save enough $$ to fly my gear hopefully above the 100k feet barrier, get pictures from "Toledo1" in near-space. But wanted to open this up for local commentary.

Thanks for your time,
-Josh

P.S. as a side note, I was also thinking about allotting enough mass that I could send up some pins, pens, or low weight objects I could then could ebay to raise funds for further projects. Then include local schools for future flights. Might even do so with Toledo1 just to make some local kids feel the wow of science. As of right now it's purely a personal project, but given time and ability would like to extend this outward.