October 20, 2020
Christian Theological Seminary has awarded grants totaling $100,000 in 2020 for four efforts aimed at breaking the cycle of poverty in Indianapolis. The 2020 Faith & Action grant recipients follow.
Faith IN Indiana $30,000
This grant will support Faith IN Indiana’s programs and policies to reduce incarceration and the stark impact of incarceration on employment, income, and long-term economic self-sufficiency. The nonprofit organization will use grant funds to build support for innovative policies that can fight crime without incarceration. It will expand programs that identify people with substance abuse or mental illness and direct them into treatment, not jail. Funds will also support non-carceral strategies for reducing crime, particularly Group Violence Intervention, a research-backed program that identifies individuals most likely to be perpetrators of gun homicides, surrounds them with social support, and offers them an honorable exit from street crime.
Englewood Community Development Corporation $30,000
This grant will be used to deepen relationships between community partners and two schools newly located in the Englewood neighborhood, Purdue Polytechnic High School (PPHS) and Paramount School of Excellence (PSOE). The collaboration will mobilize community resources to enrich the quality education of students, a majority of whom are people of color and/or from households facing poverty, in a way that will help break the cycle of poverty for their families. Grant funds will include first-year salary and overhead for a new position at Englewood CDC, community school coordinator, as well as supplies to facilitate safe gatherings of school/community stakeholders. The staff person will familiarize students and families with the neighborhood, facilitate connections with community organizations for project-based learning, after-school care, and other supports, and coordinate use of such community resources as Englewood CDC’s commercial kitchen and gymnasium.
Public Advocates in Community Re-Entry (PACE) $25,000
PACE will use its grant funds to remove barriers to successful re-entry for men and women coming out of prison and their families. PACE will expand its efforts that help people living in poverty make progress toward self-sufficiency through employment (assisting individuals get out of poverty), recovery services (preventing overdose), and housing stability (preventing homelessness). PACE fights poverty by helping ex-offenders develop productive lives and avoid re-offending. In addition, for those men who have graduated from PACE programs, a select group will be trained as mentors for teens participating in Hovey Street Church of Christ’s Evolve Ministry.
Hovey Street Church of Christ Evolve Ministry $15,000
This grant will enable Hovey Street Church of Christ to expand its Evolve Ministry for teens struggling with trauma and educate its community on the tools necessary to overcome both mental and physical poverty. The ministry’s innovative collaboration with PACE will provide mentors for teens in the 46218 area code. The community surrounding Hovey Street Church of Christ is an under-served and under-developed area in Indianapolis with significant income disparities. In addition, the community has significant levels of community-based traumas directly to related to violence, structural racism and historical inequalities. The grant funds will help address the significant need for more mental health services and social support for families working to break the cycle of poverty.
“These grant recipients embrace the kind of collaborative and holistic efforts required to reduce and ultimately eliminate poverty in Indianapolis,” said Faith & Action Director Lindsey Nell Rabinowitch.
With the generosity of the Mike and Sue Family Fund, CTS has provided grants to 24 organizations in the past four years with gifts totaling $515,000.
About the Faith & Action Project
Christian Theological Seminary’s Faith & Action Project is dedicated to helping to spark a revolution of hope by leveraging resources of communities of faith to connect, inspire and empower lasting solutions for people confronting poverty. Through annual public events and grants, the Faith & Action Project seeks to ignite a solution-oriented movement for inclusive well-being in our community. Launched in 2016, the Faith & Action Project is supported by the Mike and Sue Smith Family Fund and Lumina Foundation. Learn more about the Faith & Action Project here.
