A $400,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Elkhart County is part of a $5 million investment by IU South Bend to start a cluster of advanced health science programs at the Elkhart Center in downtown Elkhart. Undergraduate classes in speech language pathology will start this fall on the South Bend campus and master’s level courses will be offered in Elkhart in the fall of 2018, said Chancellor Terry Allison. Occupational therapy and physical therapy programs could follow after that, he said. He is hoping for 120 students to be in the programs in the coming years. IU South Bend Read More »

For nearly four decades, Walnut Hill Early Childhood Center has helped families by providing affordable, high-quality early learning opportunities. A new facility could expand the number who can benefit from its services. The non-profit early childhood center is planning renovation of a facility to become its third location since being founded in 1968 on the north side of Goshen. A fire prompted a move in 1980 to its current location on 11th Street in the Assembly Mennonite Church building. In that location, up to 80 children ages 2½ to 6 years old learn in four classrooms. More than 50 children Read More »

Janet Ferro and Cathi Auger playfully tease each other that if the day comes, the other one will have to speak in front of the 100 Women Who Care Elkhart County group. The longtime friends joined the giving circle when it began three years ago. Every three months, the 100 Women Who Care group comes together for a short social gathering and meeting time to decide the beneficiary of their $10,000 quarterly gift. Ferro and Auger have participated in every meeting. “For each $100 you put in, you get one vote for a charity of your choice,” said Ferro on how the Read More »

The first grants from the Greatest Need fund through the Community Foundation of Elkhart County continue a tradition of nearly 50 years of generosity from the Well Foundation. The Well Foundation, formerly named the Goshen Hospital & Health Care Foundation, was created in 1969 to provide strength and stability to Goshen General Hospital so that future generations might have access to high quality health care. The Foundation gave more than $6 million to health needs of the surrounding community during its existence. Its founders, a group of caring people who worked together to give back to the community, organized the Read More »

It was an unseasonably warm day in March. Folks in and around Elkhart County went about their days as usual. Among them was Heather Streiter, then a 17-year-old getting ready for her day at Concord High School. She set down her straightener on her marble Jack-and-Jill vanity she shared with her sister Meghan, rushed to pile her things together, nabbed her bag from the table, and flung the door open. Her Honda Civic carted her down the same old streets. She used the time as she normally did to think about typical high school things: How will I finish that Read More »

It’s 6:00 a.m. and Jamison Czarnecki is swapping his orange and grey running shoes for a pair of well-worn hiking boots. He’s on his feet the bulk of the day, and much of that is spent outdoors. Red laces offer just the slightest touch of flare to an otherwise reserved appearance. Jamison heads out the door, and he’s off to work. He passes the familiar Emilio’s Tires and crosses Main Street. Johnson Controls to his right and industrial buildings to the left form a final barrier before he hits the final stretch of road that will bring him to his Read More »

The room is awash with light. Streaming in from two large windows, filling the homey space with warmth. Joyce Menchinger herself exudes warmth with or without the sun’s presence. She stands in the entryway. Joyce is soft-spoken and kind. It would be readily apparent to anyone after just minutes that she is the sort of person you’d want to clone in the mental health field. She is patient, humble, and smart as a whip. Before sitting, she offers a tour of the facility. The building was proud. A place to find comfort and treatment for the mind ought to be Read More »

An air conditioner is a simple convenience. Maybe not the product of a transformative gift, or a changemaker in the landscape of our community. But how simple is it, really? When an air conditioner is a stand-in for the simple expenditures of a lean-running institution like Faith Lutheran Church, that simple convenience becomes incredibly complex. And when running lean means changing more lives through faith and practice, that simple convenience translates to community transformation. Such is the story of how the Community Foundation empowered a young pastor and his historic church to spend more time focused on the evolving needs Read More »

In a lot of ways, education is an investment in human capital. For Elkhart County it’s no different. Here, education is an investment in home…an investment in people. The Johnson family has been a mainstay of Elkhart and its members have been generous investors in the community through the years. If we treated people like stocks in the stock market, Leonard W. Johnson, Jr. was like Berkshire Hathaway. He was a great investment. He graduated high school at age 14, the youngest graduate in Elkhart Community Schools history. He went on to get his Doctor of Medicine degree from Howard Read More »