Impact 100 members and NextGen board members gathered Tuesday at Foust Elementary School to announce the finalists for four grants totaling $254,000.
Five finalists for two $100,000 grants were announced.
Boulware Center is seeking the grant to replace sewer lines and renovate two bathrooms that are used daily by 48 men who reside at the facility and expand and improve the current usable living space.
Friends of Sinners would like to purchase a “Mommy and Me” cottage to create a meeting place to bring mothers in recovery and their children and provide a safe, overnight environment for mothers and their children to bond.
H.L. Neblett Center hopes to use funding for the development of Western Academy for “at-promise” students through a purchase of a modular school unit of two classrooms and two bathrooms.
Salvation Army plans to remodel and expand the current kitchen to provide more meals and expand services to the community at-large as well as renovate the gym facilities to better serve local youth.
Western Kentucky Regional Blood Center would purchase a new bloodmobile.
One of the following organizations will receive a $41,000 residual grant:
RiverPark Center would purchase and replace 80 music stands, repair and enhance the Steinway piano used in performances and upgrade the lighting and technical elements of the RiverPark Center.
St. Benedict’s Homeless Shelter would use the grant toward purchasing a women’s shelter to use as a safe space for homeless women and their children, creating day and night safety.
A $13,000 grant will be awarded to one of three finalists chosen by the 130 high school women of Impact NextGen, a teenage group modeled after Impact 100.
Dream Riders of Kentucky is asking for funding to create a dedicated, multipurpose station that will serve as a wash bay, a veterinarian treatment bay, a farrier bay and an equine-activity bay during therapeutic sessions by repurposing a storage area within the current facility.
Hospice and Palliative Care of Western Kentucky plans create and publish the second book in the Caring Bears series for children dealing with the death of a parent, enhance the annual Camp Courage event and purchase a children’s play set to be located at the Heartford House.
Western Kentucky Regional Blood Center would use the grant to pay for seven stationary donor beds for the Owensboro donor center.
Members of Impact 100 are invited to participate in organized site visits to the grant finalists and the final vote will be held at the Impact 100 annual meeting on Oct. 17 at the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
Current Impact 100 President Carol Bothwell began Tuesday’s meeting by saying that the day was about celebrating.
“We have more people here [for the grant finalist announcements] than usual because the format changed this year,” Bothwell said to the standing-room only space that included representatives from the nine nonprofits that would be announced as finalists.
Foust Elementary School’s principal Janie Moseley spoke of Foust being a $100,000 Impact grant recipient two years ago and how that grant was used to provide the surfacing of the new Foust playground that opened to students last week.
Moseley said that before Foust secured the Impact grant, the faculty and staff had been working for two years to secure funding for a new playground. The $258,000 inclusive playground may not have been possible without the Impact grant, she said.
“Getting the Impact grant changed everything,” Moseley said. “It was like the catalyst that changed the community.”
Foust is home to all elementary students with mobility issues for Owensboro Public Schools, of which they have two classrooms of students. Until last week, some students were unable to join their classmates on the playground.
Those in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting were invited to the playground to see the impact the grant made for Foust.
“It is making the impossible possible,” Moseley said.
Grants committee chair Mary Embry said that hearing that the Impact 100 grant “changed everything” is what the organization wants to hear, because the purpose of the grants is to make a “transformational difference” for the community.
