INDIANAPOLIS — 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.
A grant to 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.
A grant to Englewood Community Development 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.
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 received a grant 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.