Services for Southern Indiana at-risk children and their families got a mega-boost last night when Home of the Innocents won Impact 100 Southern Indiana’s $106,000 grant. The announcement was made at the annual awards dinner/celebration at Caesars Indiana when Impact 100 members (who each had donated $1,000) voted on the recipient following presentations from three finalists.
The crowd of 240, which also included community members and sponsors, cheered as the winner was revealed and jugglers on stilts emerged from fog machines on both sides of the stage to the tune of “High Hopes,” the evening’s theme.
National statistics show that Indiana has the country’s second-highest incidence of child abuse and neglect, according to Home of the Innocents representatives, leading them to seek the grant of this size to build services at the New Albany office to improve lives of women and children. The non-profit also has offices in Louisville and Elizabethtown, Ky.
Other finalists from several applicants last spring were Maker 13 and Hosparus of Southern Indiana. All three non-profits were deserving, according to Impact 100 Board President Lori Lewis, making the judging extremely difficult.
“High Hopes” was also the theme of a special presentation by Hope Southern Indiana, which received Impact 100’s grant of $100,000 last year. Several teens from its Self-Esteem Boot Camp presented an expressive, inspirational dance, and Hope’s Executive Director Angie Graf recounted moving success stories from the weekend experience, which will continue for 150 more teen girls through next year. Impact 100’s first grant--$50,000--was presented to St. Elizabeth’s Teaching Kitchen in 2008.
Impact 100 Southern Indiana, a fund of the Community Foundation of Southern Indiana, is growing, Lewis said, as more and more women realize the power in coming together to achieve greater results. Through its members, women have raised more than a quarter of a million dollars since the non-profit’s first effort in 2008. Her passionate appeal from the podium at the dinner invited women to renew or begin memberships on the spot, which resulted in $70,000 in pledges raised toward the 2020 grant. Lewis hopes the amount will grow to $150,00 or more next year as women continue to unite to create transformational change in Clark, Floyd, and Harrison counties.