Wabash Valley Community Foundation Awards $400,000 through “Creating a Better Tomorrow” Initiative

The Wabash Valley Community Foundation awarded five grants totaling $400,379 through its “Creating a Better Tomorrow” initiative, which aims to address issues related to mental health, substance use and/or homelessness in Clay, Sullivan and Vigo counties.

Funded by an anonymous donation, this marks the final cycle of a three-year program that has now awarded over $1 million toward these efforts.

“Addressing mental health, substance use and homelessness has been one of our top priorities, and we are so grateful to the anonymous donor whose generosity made these substantial investments toward improving the lives of others possible,” said Beth Tevlin, president and CEO of the Wabash Valley Community Foundation.

Grants awarded this year are:

• INSPIRE/WV Recovery Center- $57,280 in support of INSPIRE, a jail recovery program to assist individuals with overcoming substance use disorders. This funding will be used to benefit those within the Community Foundation’s service area of Clay, Sullivan and Vigo counties.
• Reach – $100,000 to launch the Second Chance Employment and Maintenance Program that will serve to provide job coaching, skills training and wrap-around support for those in poverty, with a goal of getting people on a path toward employment/employability.
• CLEAR/United Way – $56,000 to further support the CLEAR Program in Sullivan and Vigo counties. CLEAR is a program designed to help eligible low-level drug offenders to overcome their addiction.
• Lugar Center – $100,000 to develop a new graduate medical education residency program in psychiatry in the Wabash Valley, to address a critical shortage of psychiatrists in the immediate area.
• Council on Domestic Abuse (CODA) – $87,099 to expand the mobile advocacy program that will allow them to deliver critical services in the field to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, rather than in the facility, which operates at full capacity most of the time.

“We are excited about the lasting impact these grants will provide and the measurable difference these programs will have on our community for years to come,” said Tevlin.