2018 Community Impact Grant Recipients
Organization Project Description Grant Amount
Alexandria Community Center Entrance Sideway to Community Center $5,000
Alternatives Incorporated Replace our well-used dining room chairs in our emergency shelter for domestic and sexual violence survivors and replenish supplies needed for our case management welcome bags. $4,500
Anderson Area Children's Choir The major goals for the children provided by the organization are: Fostering the personal and social growth of choir members and promoting their sense of self-worth, self-esteem, accomplishment, and pride Exposing children to the values and beliefs of other societies and cultures Teaching children to read music at various ability levels Maintaining choir membership open to children of all racial, cultural, religious and economic backgrounds Attaining a high level of excellence in public musical performance Contributing to the cultural life of Anderson, Indiana and Madison County areas Increasing the quality of singing in area schools by providing an organization which can excel beyond the experiences possible in the average school music program $5,000
Anderson Public Library The Summer Reading Program (SRP) fills an educational need for children in Anderson's Community by encouraing children to read and attend library activities throughout their summer vacation. $8,000
Anderson Symphony Orchestra Association, Inc. Sponsorship for ASO's Festival de Musica Concert on April 13. G2 Dancers from Indianapolis' Gregory Hancock Ballet Company will perform with the full orchestra. $4,000
Aspire Indiana, Inc. Kids Talk Child Advocacy Center's Child Abuse Prevention presentations for Kindergarten to 12th grade students throughout Madison County schools. $10,000
Children's Bureau The 2019 Madison County Safety Fair will be presented in June in collaboration with more than 40 community partners for more than 1,000 parents, caregivers, and children. $5,000
College Mentors for Kids, Inc. Match 30 at-risk Anderson youth in mentoring relationships with Anderson University undergraduates. The grant will enable: -30 youth to visit the AU campus 18 times over the school year, spending 36 hours with their mentors -35 AU students to volunteer over 1,400 hours for their community.  $5,000
Dove Harbor In an effort to serve more families in crisis, and to support Dove Harbors Theory of Change. is marks Dove Harbor's 25th year of serving women and children in crisis within Madison County. In March of 2018 we began a second floor renovation project to create more programming space. Dove Harbor is looking for a chance to begin again by expanding program space, space is in need of painting, expanded electrical service, flooring throughout the offices and waiting room. $5,000
Elwood Community Development Corporation Along with our community partners we are establishing a "first ever" community based garden. $6,000
Gateway Association, Inc. Funding will be used to improve our early learning environment and materials. An updated, comprehensive, research-based curriculum that aligns with the Common Core State Standards and the state early learning standards will be purchased. New learning materials will be purchased and used by teaching staff to individualize instruction and foster children's learning and growth. Area rugs will be purchased and utilized in classrooms to create comfortable spaces in each room for children to play. $5,000
Gateway Association, Inc. Funding will be used to purchase area rugs for each of our six classroom settings, outdoor trash cans for fenced in playgrounds, and outdoor benches that convert into tables for the playgrounds. $3,165
Habitat for Humanity of Madison County Habitat for Humanity of Madison County is looking to expand its capacity to build more affordable homes for partnering families in Madison County. In order for the organization to grow its ability to produce more stable, decent housing units within the local economy, it must have an accurate, transparent, and accessible method for tracking its true assets and liabilities. Being able to monitor up-to-the-minute revenue and expenses, offer timely invoicing and payment processing, running reports, tracking sales, managing gifts in kind, and monitoring inventory and construction costs will be key for growth. By purchasing updated accounting software and outsourcing payroll services, the limited staff and volunteers of Madison County's Habitat affiliate will be better positioned to engage potential donors, partner with corporate and community sponsors, and participate in city and county redevelopment projects. $2,650
Hinds Career Center Anatomy in Clay curriculum will increase kinesthetic learning of the human body systems. Ultimately this will increase knowledge retention of our students making them more competent healthcare providers. $10,000
Historic Fall Creek, Pendleton Settlement, Inc A grassroots citizens group under Historic Fall Creek, Pendleton Settlement has rallied together around a mission; to save the flood-threatened log cabin on Mill Road in Pendleton. The project is the removal and restoration of the Log Cabin to a new location in Falls Park, where it will find new life as a public amenity and a place that matters to Pendleton's present and future residents and visitors.  $5,000
House of Hope of Madison County, Inc. The House of Hope purchased a new 3/4 House in january of 2018. We have renovated it to prepare for client residence. We gratefully ask the foundation's assistance in purchasing 6 matresses for client beds. For this project, we plan to have a total of 12 clients in residence. $5,700
Indiana Women In Need Foundation Indiana Women In Need Foundation supports women statewide currently receiving treatment for breast cancer by securing and paying for individualized services that relieve emotional, physical and financial burdens. IWIN fills a critical gap in the breast cancer support network and is the link in the chain that keeps these women in treatment. Too often the physical and financial strain of treatment causes women to give up their fight thereby losing their opportunity to receive treatment and their only chance at a cure. IWIN's sole program, the Survivor Support Program, facilitates professional services valued at $400 per recipient to meet the non-medical needs of women (and more recently, men) undergoing breast cancer treatment. Professional services include childcare, eldercare, meal preparation, assistance with groceries, transportation to medical facilities or gas for their daily journey to radiation, home maintenance (housekeeping and lawn care), and wellness support (such as yoga, exercise classes and massage therapy). $2,500
Leadership Academy of Madison County Culminating in a Getting to know you Trade Show of service opportunities in Northern Madison County, we will provide workshops and training in the field of volunteer service and board governance training to citizens of the community resulting in greater organizational sustainability for the organizations and the communities they serve, primarily targeting Elwood and Alexandria communities. $4,000
Madison County Historical Society The Madison County Historical Society is working to convert office space into dedicated museum space in our history center. Currently there is no permanent museum space in Anderson for Madison County history. Students, families, and visitors who wish to learn area history have few options. In addition to serving as a museum space, this area would serve as a meeting room for educational seminars. We are the proud owner of a significant collection of Wright Rich Cut Glass Company and Aladdin Lamp products. Adding a permanent museum space would allow the center the opportunity to showcase these wonderful Madison County-made products. These are some of the largest collections in existence, and there is currently no space sufficient to display them. Our current space consists of a suite on the first floor of the center that serves as a rotating, topical display. Adding a museum room will allow us to continue to highlight areas of interest while at the same time provide a more in-depth local education area that can be rotated and updated to meet the need of showcasing local history. We will be able to serve both local residents and tourists in this space. $1,400
Madison County Problem Solving Court Professional development to attend the National Association of Drug Court Professionals Annual Conference in National Harbor, Maryland in July 2019 and sponsorship of our MCPSC participant incentive program. $10,000
Madison County Sheriff's Chaplaincy Program Project H.O.P.E. is centered on the idea of bringing H elp, O pportunity, P reparation and E mpowerment to our community's emerging young adults. Through a cooperative partnership of civic organizations, faith communities, business leaders and local government officials, Project HOPE raises the civic standard of a generation to come by providing mentoring for at risk youth. The lesson plans include, talks my father or mother never had with me, substance abuse, education, respect, discipline. The kids also engage in community service activities to assist local businesses and citizens manual labor. $2,800
Operation Love Ministries, Inc. Operation Love Ministries' Food Pantry distributes 250,000 pounds of food each year to hungry families in Madison County. The food pantry is located on the lower level of the strategic downtown Anderson location, right in the heart of the community need. Currently, pallets of food must be unloaded manually, sent down a conveyer belt, and reloaded onto pallets and shelves; making for a back-breaking and labor intensive process that limits how much food can be received and distributed. With an aging volunteer population and increased liability through this process, Operation Love is working to install a hydraulic lift station to load pallets into the building in a quick and efficient manner. Over half of the funding for this project has already been committed. With a leadership gift from MCCF, OLM can increase efficiency, decrease potential injuries, and increase the capacity for food donation receipt through the completion of funding for this lift station project. $5,000
Park Place Community Center This project will ensure the installation of air conditioning in the Park Place Community Center gym. $10,000
Rangeline Community Center-Senior Outreach HVAC System installation. In terms of active services such as exercise groups, card groups, social groups, dance groups, billiard groups, other music groups. This project also aims to offer supportive services such as enrollement services for Medicare, FSSA benefits (Food stamps. Medicaid, QMB), Energy assistance, legal assistance, SHIP assistance, low income telephone programs, homewoners and rental assistance programs, and many others. $10,000
Safe Families for Children, Central Indiana Safe Families for Children Central Indiana (SFFCCI) is part of an international movement of compassion that gives hope to families in crisis. Safe, loving homes are provided where parents may voluntarily have their children cared for while parents seek to restore stability in their lives. Safe Families for Children mission is to host vulnerable children and create extended family-like support for desperate families through a community of devoted volunteers motivated by compassion to keep children safe and ultimately together with their families. SFFCI is requesting funding which will cover program costs that include: providing case management services, recruiting and training volunteer host families, providing direct assistance to families in need, mentoring and counseling through home visits, and providing outreach to community referral sources. $7,000
Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana Through the School Pantry Program, children and their families build positive relationships with the child's school, which contributes to that child's overall education and development. This is accomplished through the provision of food at school during monthly distributions, which meets an immediate need for food while increasing parental engagement at school, a result that has long-lasting effects for the child specifically. $5,000
Secret Families of Madison County Our Christmas Charity benefits families of Madison County who are in need of one-time assistance during the Christmas holiday. We partner with all of the elementary schools in the county who provide names of families they have nominated for this assistance. These families are then contacted, interviewed, and provided with Christmas presents for each family member, a $50 Meijer gift card to purchase a Christmas dinner, a Bible, and a live Christmas tree, if needed, including a stand and decorations. Most of all we provide hope that someone cares for them. On the first Saturday in December we gather nearly 275 volunteers from the community and shop, wrap, and deliver all of the gifts to every family. It costs an average of $550 per family. The gifts given are primarily ESSENTIAL items such as winter coats, boots, and accessories, basic clothing including socks and undergarments, and usually a toy or hobby item for the children, and a special personal item for the parents. We serve each family only one year. Our objective is to provide a one-time helping hand up versus a continuing and ongoing hand out. These families would not have Christmas without some kind of help. The families we serve are humbled, gracious, and thankful that someone is seeing them in their needful situation and cares enough to help them through a difficult season of life. This event happens on one day of the year, but we spend the entire year planning the event and raising the funds. $10,000
Servants at Work (SAWs) SAWs request is for funding to build wheel chair ramps for 10 Madison County residents. To date, 14 ramps have been requested by Madison County residents. The average cost of a ramp is $1,000. The ramp components will be purchased in Madison County and build volunteers would also be from Madison County. $5,000
Servants at Work, Inc.  SAWs SAWS will build 10 free wooden, removable wheelchair ramps for 10 mobility challenged, low income, medically disabled Madison residents. SAWs will build the ramps with volunteers to American Disability Act guidelines. The ramps will be construted before the end of 2018. Each ramp cost $1,000. $10,000
South Meridian Church of God With a community advocate already on staff, and a raft of seasoned volunteers, South Meridian Church of God seeks to expand its already successful Open Door tutoring/mentoring program to include more aggressive educational initiatives to tackle the ever declining margins of educational poverty in the Avondale and surrounding neighborhoods. This initiative will require the addition of grade-specific reading groups, the implementation of technology (matching what is currently being used in our public school classrooms), proven online educational apps (with assessment and tracking capabilities), as well as early phonemic decidable curricula. $5,000
St. Vincent de Paul Society - Good Shepherd Conference Buying the materials (wood, glue, nails, screws, paint, etc.) to build 100 sturdy bed frames or tables for needy clients. The labor to build and fabricate the bed frame/table is all done by skilled volunteer craftsmen. $2,000
Stripped Love Human trafficking is a $32 billion industry worldwide, with nearly $27.8 billion generated from sex trafficking. Sex trafficking involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to lure victims into commercial sexual exploitation or sexual slavery ( https://www.dhs.gov/blue-campaign/what-human-trafficking ). Seventy percent of all women who are trafficked domestically are trafficked into the commercial sex trade, including strip clubs, massage parlors, and brothels. In Anderson, Indiana, victims of trafficking and exploitation can be found, primarily, working in strip clubs. Stripped Love's mission is to “empower women to walk out of fear and into love. We have direct contact with women in Madison County that have been abused, exploited, and, in many cases, trafficked into the commercial sex trade. This grant is seeking funding for Stripped Love's Second Sundays program where staff/volunteers are in regular relationship and community with the families served by Stripped Love. The Second Sundays environment allows for educational programming with adults and children, as well as recreational and fun events and outings aimed at deepening relationships and strengthening families. $5,000
Team Roboto 447 This project is for the 2019 FIRST robotics season. The funding provides a kit of parts which contains many essential parts for building the robot, and participation in three in-state district events. This includes the parts for a second robot. One robot would be for competitions and a second one for testing and practicing. This will allow the team to teach/follow better design, development, and implementation practices by being able to test and promote their changes from the test robot to the competition (production) robot. The aim is to reduce the M ean T ime B etween F ailures of the robot during competitions, teach best practices, and improve the overall performance of the robot. $2,400
The Christian Center, Inc. This phase is to bring add a ventilation system to the dishwasher as steam has created an issue of mold in the kitchen and other parts of the building. It will also add a warmer to keep food safe to meet food safety standards. The warmer is critical to maintaining food safety standards and has been repaired four times in the past eleven months. The third element of the proposal is to install "sneeze guards" along the food serving line to further improve health standards. The fourth element are desperately needed improvements to the kitchen and dining room bathrooms. Both need replaced toilets and improved safety rails and more secure fixtures. $8,000
The Exodus House Inc. We are adding a gravel parking lot on our property that would accommodate 16 new parking spaces in order to meet our growing demand for visitors to our AA meetings, NA meetings, and Community Events. $3,100
The Salvation Army Our Backpack & Supply program will provide backpacks full of supplies for children in need in Madison County. We expect to assist about 1,500 children in need. $5,000
YMCA Madison County We currently only have one working HVAC unit at our Elwood location. We need 4 units in order to service the whole building comfortably. This grant woulf help us supply the units and service the one currently working unit. $5,000