NEWS RELEASE

Impact 100’s leadership team has concluded its vetting process by selecting seven grant finalists to present to the full membership for final selection of grant recipients at the April 16^th Annual Meeting at Oak Harbor.

“This year Impact 100 was pleased to have one of the largest group of applications in our seven year history”, stated Suzanne Bertman, Impact Grants Chair.  “The competition was stiff and our grant panels, composed of about 60 Impact women, did an amazing job examining each grant in detail and visiting each and every applicant. We feel we have excellent choices for our members to vote on at the Annual Meeting on April 16.  We congratulate the finalists and look forward to seeing who our four $100,000 winners will be.  We also are thankful for all the hard work and time the nonprofits who are not finalists this year put into their applications.  We are very lucky to live in a community where so many dedicated people work in these agencies and where so many volunteers give their time, talents and financial support to improving Indian River County.”

Since the membership again numbers over 400, four $100,000 grants will again be awarded, with any remaining funds divided evenly among the other finalists. Each year, Impact 100 awards every penny of membership funds in grants to local nonprofits.

The finalists represent all four of Impact 100’s focus areas: Family; Education; Health & Wellness and Enrichment & Environment. Impact 100’s grant finalists for the 2015 season include:

SENIOR RESOURCE ASSOCIATION: Senior Resource Association provides services to older adults through many programs including Meals on Wheels, Nutrition Education, Counseling Services, and Adult Day Health Care. SRA has two Adult Day Health Care facilities in IR County, one in Vero Beach and one in Sebastian. SRA is asking Impact 100 for funds to help transform the Sebastian Adult Day Care Center in the same manner they remodeled the Vero Beach Center. They need to make the Sebastian Center better able to handle the needs of seniors who have various cognitive or physical disabilities by installing handicapped approved bathrooms, better lighting, safer flooring, new kitchen equipment and a variety of other improvements.

PELICAN ISLAND AUDUBON SOCIETY: Pelican Island Audubon Society has submitted a grant called “Life-Changing, Lagoon-Changing” to provide a world class after-school conservation science and action opportunity for underserved students from the South County Elementary schools. This program initially would serve 5th graders and over the two year period of the grant learning modules would be developed to be shared with other IRC schools. Pelican Island Audubon Society is asking for funds for a van to bring the children to the new Audubon Center, educational equipment to help students with their scientific projects, and for salaries for the scientists who will teach and administer the program. They also plan to use high school volunteer interns.

VERO BEACH THEATRE GUILD: Vero Beach Theatre Guild is proposing a program called “Guild On The Go” which would provide musical theatre programs for the Elderly in retirement homes and other specialized facilities for the elderly. The second part of their proposal would provide concerts of musical theatre, jazz, opera, choral and concert band in our Indian River Parks free of charge. They are requesting Impact 100 funding to purchase a truck and a portable stage so they can take their productions and musical offerings to the elderly and the general public.

VNA & HOSPICE FOUNDATION: VNA & Hospice Foundation’s mission is to provide compassionate innovative care of the highest quality for patients, caregivers needing home health, hospice and community health care. They are proposing a new program to introduce music therapy to help bring more comfort and less pain to their hospice patients and to their in-home Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients. Such programs are used in other hospices around the country but there is no such program at VNA & Hospice in Indian River County. VNA & Hospice is asking Impact 100 for a grant to buy musical instruments, sheet music and recorded music and to fund music therapists and travel costs for those therapists.

LITERACY SERVICES OF INDIAN RIVER COUNTY: Literary Services of IRC calls its transformational program “Engaging Parents Now for Student Success”. This initiative will create a pilot program called PASE (Parents Advocating for Student Excellence) based on work done by the Concilio organization. There is an unacceptable number of children struggling to learn to read in IRC and Literary Services understands that parents do not always know how to help their children gain better skills. PASE would help parents become role models for their children; teach parents to navigate the school system on behalf of their children; and demonstrate ways to create a supportive home environment for these struggling children. Literary Services is asking Impact 100 for funds to purchase the copyrighted PASE program materials and receive professional coaching from Concilio and then hire a Program Coordinator and a facilitator to begin teaching these skills to parents in IRC.

THE EDUCATION FOUNDATION OF INDIAN RIVER COUNTY: The Education Foundation was founded in 1991 and is dedicated to working through funding initiatives designed to enrich educational opportunities for children enrolled in public, private, parochial and home schools throughout Indian River County. In order to graduate from high school, IRC students must pass Algebra I. Presently 25% of IRC students drop out of school because they cannot pass Algebra I. This project will implement a professional development program over a two year period for 34 IRC math teachers to better equip them to teach Algebra I in a new way that improves student success rates. The Education Foundation is asking Impact 100 for funding to hire the professional services and program of Dr. Deborah Ball, of the University of Michigan, who has developed this proven strategy to help teachers with content knowledge and new teaching skills for Algebra I.

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY FOUNDATION: The Foundation was started in 2012 to support volunteer physicians who donate their time to patient care through a program called “We Care”. The We Care Clinic program has never had a space dedicated just for this program and the program has also suffered from overall budget cuts to the health department. Yet statistics show how effective this We Care Clinic can be in keeping patients from expensive emergency room visits and from being readmitted to the hospital with all those associated high costs. The Foundation is asking Impact 100 for funding to remodel a space that has been leased to them from the Gifford Health Center for $1.00 per year. They need money waiting room furniture, examination room furnishings, and a small amount of money to market the availability of these service to IRC residents.

“The grant process began last September when all local nonprofits were invited to attend the Impact 100 Grant Informational Session”, explains President Judy Peschio. “The grants awarded by Impact 100 are for transformational, high-impact projects.”

“We are delighted with the strong grants that we are putting forth to our membership. The fact that we are maintaining a membership of over 400 members enables us to continue to award four $100,000 grants to our community,” explains Peschio. “Thanks to the efforts of our members this year, and in the previous six years, we will have the privilege of surpassing the $2.5 million mark in total grants this year. This is a tribute to the women of Indian River County.”

Find out more about Impact 100 by visiting www.impact100ir.com.