By Aubrey Abbott Patterson
Rooted in Reno County
When Jim and Heidi Unruh needed a wheelchair-accessible home so their daughter, Elise, could live a fuller life, a story, a connection and a cup of coffee created an opportunity.
The connection was forged during a meeting of the Transformational Leadership Cohort, a nine-month program that studied and applied Kansas Leadership Center principles to the local adaptive challenge of housing for vulnerable populations. The program is funded through KLC’s Leadership Transformation Grant, a partnership between the center and Hutchinson Community Foundation. During that meeting, the discussion turned to personal housing stories, and Jim, a cohort member, shared his own family’s need.
Fellow cohort participant Clint Nelson, Interfaith Housing & Community Services president and CEO, wondered if his organization could help. The two later met for coffee to explore the idea and begin a collaboration that has grown to involve the help of other community organizations and will result in a new, fully accessible and functional family home built on an existing city lot.
This story—along with the countless others like it—demonstrates the importance of community foundations in this country, which are uniquely situated to improve their regions through supporting innovative solutions and creating the conditions for powerful partnerships to form, like the one between the Unruhs and Interfaith Housing.
From November 12 to 18, we celebrate Community Foundation Week, a time when we can share and reflect on the stories of impact over the last year. Though you may not yet know your local community foundation, you’ve likely felt its impact. That’s because Hutchinson Community Foundation and more than 1,000 other community foundations across the country help to bring donors and residents together. Community foundations work to support the efforts that will help the places we call home continue to flourish and grow.
Our housing initiative is one way we are working to do that. After years of research and listening to our partners and residents, we’ve found that the Unruh family’s situation reflects the diverse housing challenges in our community. A recent housing assessment agrees, finding that Reno County must add 1,100 new units of housing in the next decade to meet demand. That’s why we’ve decided to kickstart progress. Hutch CF recently launched a three-year initiative to deploy $2.46 million in grants and loans in support of long-term solutions to these challenges. Thanks to generous contributions from donors who want to see our community thrive, we have raised $1.5 million that will support organizations like Interfaith to help even more families find homes that meet their budgets and needs.
As we enter the giving season, millions of people from every background will be looking to give back to the communities that have supported them. They’ll also look to ensure that their heartfelt giving—however they choose to give—will have the most impact. That’s why so many of them will choose to give to a community foundation.
A gift to your local community foundation is an investment in the future of your community. We like to say that community foundations are “here for good.” At Hutchinson Community Foundation, we don’t think about the next election or business cycle; we think about the next generation and the next after that.
That can seem like a daunting task, but it’s one that we all share. During Community Foundation Week, I hope you’ll join us in recognizing our collective impact and the difference we can make together.
Aubrey Abbott Patterson is president & CEO of Hutchinson Community Foundation. She can be reached at Aubrey@hutchcf.org.