Our Impact
2022 Grant Recipients
2022 GRANT RECIPIENT: The Louisville Leopard Percussionists
AWARD: $100,000
FOCUS AREA: Arts & Culture
PROJECT: New Instruments, Expanded Programming
PROJECT IMPACT: With the suite of instruments funded by this grant, we can double the number of children we serve each year and introduce a new academic program, Leopard Learners.
Organization Statement: To provide a comprehensive musical experience for children that enriches lives and builds community.
Major Recent Successes:
- Dozens of appearances at state and national conventions
- Teacher honors including Most Admired Woman in Louisville Education
- 30 years of students becoming well-rounded adults and community leaders
How this funding will impact this organization:
Ordinary kids transformed by extraordinary musical experiences - that's what the Louisville Leopards have been doing since 1993.
Children from diverse backgrounds learn different styles of music, performance skills and proficiency on percussion instruments. they learn to improvise, compose, and teach music, and to care for their instruments. These skills build creativity and self-confidence and teach life-long values of personal discipline, cooperation, leadership, responsibility and community.
Eight ensembles use the same instruments 5 days a week. A second set of instruments will allow us to double the number of children we serve, expand existing programs, and provide new programs for a new audience.
We will also be able to introduce the "Leopard Learners" a partnership with JCPS. We will take the program directly to schools, prividing both a music lesson and a tutoring session at no cost each week. This program will be a fundamentally new approach to our mission, where we provide music education to a school with no music of its own.
Playing musical instruments can improve memory, increase focus, activate the language center of the brain, improve social connections and personal expression, and i aligns with JCPS goals of improving reading and social readiness.
Wish List: Allergy-free Snacks, Offic Supplies, Fans/Air Conditioners
2022 GRANT RECIPIENT: Educational Justice, Inc.
AWARD: $100,000
FOCUS AREA: Education
PROJECT: Educational Justice Activist Program
PROJECT IMPACT: The Education Justice Activist Program provides free tutoring to under-resourced youth and engages high-achieving high school students as tutors and mentors to bridge the gap of educational inequity.
Organization Statement: To end educaitonal inequity by pairing a 5th-8th grade student with a high-achieving high school student for long-term academic mentorship aimed at both improving academic performance and providing a meaningful student leadership experience.
Major Recent Successes:
- Grew from 12 students in 2015 to 408 students in 2019
- All middle school scholars advanced to 9th grade
- Successfully maintained ongoing student participation in virtual learning during Covid
How this funding will impact this organization:
Education Justice (EJ) was formed by a group of idealistic tutors who realized that under-resourced students did not have equal access to tutoring. We launched an initiative top identify and train high school students to become dedicated tutors ("Activists"). once matched, Activist-Scholar pairs meet for supervised one-on-one tutoring sessions every week during the school year.
EJ has a five-year goal to serve 10% of our middle school population, approximately 2,800 students. As the only free, peer-to-peer tutoring program in the Louisville area that pairs middle school students with high school peers, EJ aims to expand its scale and mission impact.
With Impact100 Louisville's investment, EJ can increase the number of students served. We will achieve this in four ways:
First, develop a more robust marketing plan to keep students, parents, school and community partners informed about how they can enroll in our programs.
Second, hold scholar/tutor meetups throughout the year to build rapport, strengthen relationships and supplement online tutoring.
Third, complete the development of an innovative digital matching tool that helps students select a tutor who best matches their interests and academic needs.
Fourth, improve the teaching and learning capabilities in our virtual classroom.
Wish List: Laptops/Chromebooks, Digital Tablets, Wi-Fi Hotspots, Gift Cards for Incentives, Event/Meeting Space
2022 GRANT RECIPIENT: Hildegard House Incorporated
AWARD: $100,000
FOCUS AREA: Health & Wellness
PROJECT: Hildegard House Expansion Project
PROJECT IMPACT: A meaningful life and a peaceful, dignified death for at least 68 more people per year.
Organization Statement: To provide compassion and care to dying individuals with no home or family so that they may die with dignity.
Major Recent Successes:
- We have served over 125 individuals at the end of their lives
- We don't charge a fee
- We are run by volunteers with a 92% volunteer retention rate
- We have a passionate Board of Directors and committed long term donors
How this funding will impact this organization:
The toughest day at Hildegard House is when someone wants to live with us, and all our beds are full.
At HIldegard House, Kentucky's first and only comfort care home, we serve mostly older people at the end stage of life, some homeless, and all without caregivers. Our goal is to accept residents during their last three months, but the length of stay varies; the average stay is 3-4 weeks.
Trained volunteers and staff are the extended family for each resident. Every resident has access to a hospice team composed of a nurse, an aide, a social worker, and a chaplain. Meals, laundry, housekeeping, and companionship provide part of our home setting.
Last quarter alone there were 25 people we could not serve. There is a vital need, and we are only able to meet a fraction of it. The Impact100 Louisville grant for our expansion will help us meet that need. In May 2022 we purchased a small shotgun house in order to provide 3-4 more beds which allow us to serve about 68 more people each year. The grant money would go far to help us complete the renovation and accept residents into the new home by mid-2023.
Wish List: Long Twin Sheet, 3 Flat-Screen TV's, Canned Soft Drinks, Bottled Water, Kroger Cards
2022 GRANT RECIPIENT: Smoketown Family Wellness Center
AWARD: $100,000
FOCUS AREA: Family
PROJECT: Hiring a Community Health Worker
PROJECT IMPACT: Community Health Workers improve health well beyond the doctor's visit, building trust and connecting families to resources.
Organization Statement: With the belief that all children deserve reliable healthcare, Smoketown Family Wellness provides clinical care to children in a community-based environment that offers healthy lifestyle support for the entire family.
Major Recent Successes: With
- Provided weekly Covid vaccine clinics with Louisville Metro Public Health and Wellness
- Hosted the Kroger Mobile Market monthly
- Provided JCPS with a site for after school tutoring
How this funding will impact this organization:
The Smoketown Family Wellness Center (SFWC), located in the heart of the Smoketown neighborhood, strives to establish healthy lifestyles from birth.
Our innovation model focuses on wellness, aiming to prevent diseases that begin in childhood. SFWC also supports parents with the knowledge and resources they need. using a concierge-style care for children of families with Medicaid, we offer 24/7 access to pediatricians, extended appointment times, and a "two generation" model supporting the needs of both caregiver and child.
An Impact100 Louisville grant will allow SFWC to hire a community health worker (CHW) or CHAMP (Community Advocate Mobilizing Partnerships) to serve as a bridge to clinical and critical non-clinical resources. The CHW will support families by helping them overcome barriers in education, housing, food, and transportation.
CHWs are trusted community members with shared culture, language, and experiences, trained to serve as liasions between the community and the healthcare system. CHWs have been shown to improve health equity and well-being, especially with emotional health concerns such as low self-esteen, bullying, trauma, and suicide prevention.
With Impact100 Louisville's grant we can move closer to our goal of adding 10 year of quality life to Smoketown children.
Wish List: Baby Formula, Diapers/Pull Ups, Gift Cards, Culturally Appropriate Books Including Books about Puberty
2021 Grant Recipients
2021 GRANT RECIPIENT: DeCode Project
AWARD: $105,000
FOCUS AREA: Education
PROJECT: King Elementary Literacy Program
DETAILS:
Launched in Louisville in 2018, the DeCode Project is closing the opportunity gap by providing structured literacy instruction to elementary students with learning differences and financial barriers. In that time, DP has worked with over 40 students, four youth-serving organizations and has grown to a staff of 15 Literacy Mentors. Three key aspects to DP’s work are training Literacy Mentors, teaching kids to read and developing a network of advocates.
Wish List: Pencils, Dry Erase Markers and Erasers, Letter Tiles (Lakeshore classroom set), Laminating Sheets, Colored Printers, Masks, Disinfectant Spray and wipes, 1/2 and 1 binders, 3 mini projectors, extension cords/surge protectors , pocket folders with binder, binding machine, 3 hole punch, reams of paper, manila folders, tissue and hand sanitizer.
2020 GRANT RECIPIENT: Park Alliance of Louisville
AWARD: $105,000
FOCUS AREA: Environment
PROJECT: Maple Street Park Nature Playground and Outdoor Classroom
DETAILS:
The Maple Street Park Project fills a critical gap in access to outdoor space for 20 Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS). The new JCPS elementary school adjoining the YMCA near Maple Street will be located on a constrained urban footprint. JCPS and the YMCA are committed park champions and anchor institutions, bolstering the project’s sustainability. LPF is raising funds, engaging residents in park design and investigating a new governance model through which LPF and community members operate the park.
The park, playground and classroom will feature fully-inclusive natural play structures, a wi-fi enabled classroom, plants, pathways and more.
Wish List: Window air conditioner units, basketballs, acrylic paints, outdoor pickleball nets and balls, indoor archery net that will stay mounted on the wall, and a freestanding volleyball net.
2021 GRANT RECIPIENT: La Casita Center
AWARD: $105,000
FOCUS AREA: Family
PROJECT: Expand, upgrade, and improve the Center‘s on-site kitchen and food pantry facilities.
DETAILS:
The demand for our food pantry and soup kitchen has recently increased dramatically. The investment from Impact100 will go towards the physical upgrades to kitchen and pantry facilities to ensure proper handling and storage of food. This includes shelving, improvements to freezer, refrigerator, and inventory systems and necessary building upgrades for the pantry and kitchen expansion. These upgrades will improve the food safety standards and the quality of items available through La Casita‘s food pantry program. In addition, they will enable our food program to include stocking fresh and perishable foods that are essential for a healthy diet.
This investment will sustain our food and hospitality program for years with a beautiful, spacious, and commercial-standard pantry facility and kitchen. The families that we accompany will see that they are valued, welcomed, and worthy. This project will showcase the investment from a group like Impact100 that believes in the leadership of a Latina feminist organization.
Wish List: Shampoo, conditioner, dry black beans, dry rice, canned goods.
2020 Grant Recipients
2020 GRANT RECIPIENT:
Louisville Urban League
AWARD:
$103,000
FOCUS AREA:
Education
DETAILS:
With Impact100’s help, we will enhance and expand the Urban League’s youth programming into the Sports and Learning complex as it opens in 2021. Our education work is encompassed within our Equitable Education Engagement (E3) model which is the Louisville Urban League’s model for youth and family engagement opportunities. This model was developed in direct response to the achievement gap that begins before most of the students we serve arrive on their first day of kindergarten, widens as those same students matriculate through 12th grade, and never completely closes after traditional schooling.
2020 GRANT RECIPIENT:
YouthBuild Louisville
AWARD:
$103,000
FOCUS AREA:
Environment
COMMUNITY IMPACT:
Funding from Impact100 Louisville will support YouthBuild Louisville’s Smoketown Hopebox Laundromat + Community Space project. The renovation of vacant properties into a local laundromat and meeting/community spaces will provide much needed amenities and will enable the development of programs to stimulate the Smoketown economy. Current laundry facilities are over 2-1/2 miles away. In addition, the Smoketown Hopebox facility will function as a site for arts and culture activities, offer trainings, ensure job development for the community through the Business Incubator program and continued partnership with employers and corporations. Local nonprofit and corporate partners will utilize the space to offer training, workshops and UofL clinic hours will be offered by our wellness partners.
Wish List: Craft Supplies (construction paper, pipe cleaners, glitter, puffballs, beads, tissue paper, etc), Backpacks, Extension Cords, Tape measures for students, Twin bed sheet sets.