Updates From Our 2020 Change Maker Grant Winner

Family Promise of Hendricks County
2020 Change Maker Grant Recipient
Family Focus Area Finalist

Family Promise of Hendricks County ends and prevents homelessness. With two Resource Centers located in Plainfield and Brownsburg, Family Promise provides emergency and permanent housing, along with stability services such as child care, transportation, living wage jobs and life skills. The bottleneck in creating sustainable stability for struggling families in our community is affordable housing with low rental barriers. The PowerHouse Project, funded by Impact 100, is the solution! It creates new housing and maximizes the use of existing housing stock through partnerships with landlords and property managers. Since the launch of this project in August, Family Promise has ended homelessness for 19 families and prevented homelessness for 107 families. With funds provided by Impact 100, the organization hired a Housing Development Coordinator; who has secured 7 homes and just received a $500,000 grant to secure additional housing units. Family Promise is incredibly grateful to the women of Impact 100 for providing the space, credibility and ability to create and sustain this dignity-creating program in our community!

Claude McNeal Productions
Arts, Culture & Preservation
Focus Area Finalist

Since receiving their residual grant in July, Claude McNeal Productions has offered 12 ACT Out social-issue theatre programs for approximately 200 students involved in Indy Parks’ Summer Youth Programs. The grant will allow the organization to present 23 programs for more than 1,800 students within the Cass County School Corporation this year. Topics of focus will include bullying/cyber-bullying, the negative effects of social media posts, and dealing with feelings of fear and anger in the age of COVID. Funds are also being used to develop new programs specifically to help students deal with the stress, anxiety, and feelings of desperation brought on by the pandemic.

Nine13sports
Education Focus Area Finalist

Nine13sports has a number of programs that utilize the bicycle as an educational took, but none are growing faster than Kids Building Bikes. This program teaches basic mechanical aptitude skills as well as an array of essential employability skills like self-confidence, perseverance and attention to detail – and best of all each graduate earns their very own bicycle, helmet, tool set and lock! Nine13 has delivered the program in a mobile classroom since 2018, but with demand exceeding capacity they have set forth during 2020 to build a classroom space at their facility in the Near Northwest neighborhoods. The IMPACT 100 grant they earned this year has allowed them to finish the buildout of this space which will allow them to graduate an additional 300 kids annually through the program for years to come.

FIDO
Environment & Animal Welfare Focus Area Finalist

Impact 100’s residual grant allowed FIDO to purchase a brand-new large pick-up truck to be used in their fencing program in Eastside neighborhoods. They will now have reliable transportation to haul the supplies needed to build safe fencing for low-income households, keeping hundreds of dogs from living their lives at the end of chains. FIDO will also continue to provide additional resources and education, ensuring their pets are safe, well-fed, and welcome members of their families.

Paws & Think
Health & Wellness Focus Area Finalist

Impact 100’s grant has allowed Paws & Think ’s therapy teams to visit with grieving children at Camp Healing Tree’s Family Picnic. The organization has also provided dog cutout images to its program partners to provide a visible reminder they are here for them. Paws & Think is on-call for visits at Susie’s Place to help kids as they give their forensic interview after being abused. Their videos of support are being played throughout hospitals and other program partner locations in Central Indiana, and they have provided numerous virtual visits which help to maintain or regain a positive mental outlook. Thousands of individuals are being served from the resources Impact 100 has provided.