Funding Allows Agency to Expand Services The Corydon Democrat Wednesday, November 8, 2006 |
The Harrison County Community Foundation is celebrating its 10th year of serving and giving in Harrison County, so many of its fund-holders and grant recipients are telling their story. This final column in a five-part series helps explain how the Foundation's funding impacts many lives in Harrison County.
Harrison County Community Services has been the recipient of multiple grants throughout the 10-year history of Harrison County Community Foundation.
Our success stories are demonstrated every day in ways that belie description. Our capacity to serve people who live in our county has been enhanced and strengthened by funding provided by HCCF.
The success stories that we have been privileged to experience on a daily basis are individual ones, and often not spectacular in and of themselves. However, one by one, through support of the HCCF, children are fed, utilities are maintained, assistance is available to those who could not obtain the very basics of life, including medical care.
The miracle of success for the one-in-10 families who live in our county, who are helped each year, is due in large part from the many grants funded to our agency. The success is measured in the short term. However, hope is alive and can be seen on the faces of our people.
The individuals and families who are suffering the effects of poverty and crisis must have more than short-term solutions to their needs. They must know that our community is working tirelessly to bring external changes that will provide them opportunity for long-term success. They must know that we are working to address the causes of poverty and need.
Due to the insight of the board and staff of HCCF, there is recognition that our community must continue to work through the effects of poverty, while making sustainable changes within our community. HCCF's grant-making process works to pioneer efforts that will provide those sustainable community solutions to needs within our county. The Foundation board and staff recognize that while the problems faced within our county are complex, solutions are attainable over time.
The support of the Foundation has allowed diverse agencies and institutions to come together to plan for change in the community conditions that breed poverty and need. The Foundation's work within our county has created opportunity for an improved quality of life for us all. The Foundation has encouraged collaborative work that creates community problem-solving across traditional service systems.
One of those sustainable solutions includes affordable housing. In Harrison County, the scope and breadth of affordable housing needs is a particular challenge that has been embraced by the Foundation from multiple perspectives.
Multiple partnerships have been developed to address the need for safe, affordable, decent housing for hundreds of people. No one agency or entity takes full credit for the development or sustainability of all the services designed to change the landscape of affordable housing. Rather, it is the partnerships among many that have resulted in a comprehensive approach to change, partnerships both public and private. HCCF has supported Repair Affair, Habitat for Humanity of Harrison County, Blue River Housing in their "bricks and mortar" projects, as well as our agency's support services that include housing counseling and budgeting assistance. All part of the array of services that people need to reach for the American dream of home-ownership, or find safe, decent affordable housing solutions.
While transforming lives one at a time, we have been given the opportunity to create positive, sustained changes within our community. Those positive changes are reflected daily in both our agency and the larger community through the capacity of our ability to serve. We are experiencing the possibilities of resources to create a county where each of us can realize success.
The Foundation is part of the fabric of our county, changing lives, changing the community.
Editor's note: Shirley Raymond is the Executive Director of Harrison County Community Services.