Community Foundation Awards $409,000 in Grants

Camp Millhouse, one of the grant recipients

As part of its 2022 spring grants cycle, the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County has awarded $409,000 to local nonprofit organizations through Special Project Grants.

The Special Project Grant process encourages projects in community development and urban affairs; parks, recreation, and environment; health and human services, and youth and education. All nonprofit organizations serving the citizens of St. Joseph County are eligible to apply.

These Special Project Grant recipients include:

• IU South Bend: $150,000 (payable over two years)
  This grant will support the creation of IU South Bend’s modern Healthcare Simulation Center, a 20,000 square-foot center that will include state-of-the-art applied clinical spaces, fully equipped with modern simulation and virtual technologies for hands-on learning opportunities. The Healthcare Simulation Center will help the campus meet current and growing demand for health science programs.
• Camp Millhouse, Inc.: $100,000
  This grant will help Camp Millhouse replace its deteriorated main lodge. The new 6,500-square-foot lodge will almost double the size of the old building, better meeting the needs of the children and adults with disabilities that Camp Millhouse serves. Improvements will include new bathrooms with adult changing tables, as well as expanded kitchen space devoted to food preparation and storage.
• LOGAN: $60,000
  This grant supports LOGAN’s efforts to offer speech and behavioral services to children in the Early Learning Center in the United Way of St. Joseph County’s new Southeast Neighborhood Center. It will help to provide a full-time speech and language pathologist (SLP), a part-time board-certified behavior analyst (BCBA), and the special tools and equipment for these services. All 112 students at the ELC will have access to these services. LOGAN plans to replicate this model at each of the future United Way neighborhood centers planned throughout St. Joseph County.
• St. Vincent de Paul Society of St. Joseph County: $30,000
  St. Vincent de Paul (SVDP) Society is receiving funding to open and operate a fully licensed charitable pharmacy at the SVDP Center on Crescent Avenue. The SVDP Charitable Pharmacy will provide a 30-day supply of prescribed medications at no charge to qualified, low-income adults ages 18-64, through their partnership with Dispensary of Hope. This pharmacy is being planned based on a very successful national SVDP charitable pharmacy model.
• Near Northwest Neighborhood, Inc.: $25,000
  This grant will be used for repairs and upgrades to Near Northwest Neighborhood’s (NNN) Community Center on Portage Avenue. The building has served the NNN and community since 1997, hosting more than 800 well-attended neighborhood events annually. Planned projects include updates to the roof, parking lot, and building exterior, as well as upgrades to security systems, internet access, and HVAC equipment.
• Broadway Christian Parish United Methodist Church: $24,000
  This grant will support improvements to Broadway Christian Parish’s hospitality facilities for homeless and low-income individuals. On Monday through Thursday, BCP serves breakfast to more than 50 people, and currently the organization has only one shower/toilet/grooming station. This funding will make it possible to add new, accessible bathrooms that include additional shower and grooming facilities.
• enFocus, Inc.: $20,000
  Using Pete Buttigieg’s Carbon Neutral 2050 (CN2050) plan as a guide, enFocus is creating the Carbon Sustainability Pilot Program to address the impact of residential housing emissions within South Bend, which they estimate to contribute approximately 44% of the city’s total carbon emissions. This grant will help support a multi-phase process through which enFocus will map out South Bend’s stakeholders and infrastructure, and then develop and implement pilot-level projects to help residents reduce their housing emissions.