Southern Indiana Business July-August 2020 | Page 34

Jadczak calls it transformational change.
And as a Southern Indiana native who holds
a master’s degree in social work and writes
grants for the federal government’s office of
child support by day, she saw the organization
as a natural fit. “I’ve always felt this calling
to serve others and empower others,” she
said. “I think Impact 100 gives nonprofits the
tools to make amazing changes. Those are the
kinds of things we need to continue to do if
we want people to be self-sufficient and have
an increased quality of life.”
It’s not just the recipient organizations that
experience a change. Jadczak said the women
who contribute also love the bigger impact
they can make on the community. “They
say, ‘I’m so glad I can do something positive
when there’s so much fear in the world’,”
she said. “It feels like a silver lining to them,
something they can believe in.”
During its first year in 2017, the winner
of a $50,000 grant was St. Elizabeth Catholic
Charities in New Albany, which used the
money to build a commercial teaching kitchen
that offers culinary classes to women and girls
both in their residential programs and in the
community at large. That same year, Leaha
McCrite was on the St. Elizabeth’s Board of
Directors.
“It majorly impacted the women and
children that we serve,” said McCrite, and
included local chefs who taught classes and
a certificate of completion that women could
highlight during job interviews. “It gave them
a skill set and tools to procure jobs for their
futures,” she said.
Seeing what St. Elizabeth was able to
accomplish with the grant money, McCrite
decided to join Impact 100 as well. “It was
powerful for me to see that impact in our own
community,” she said. “It was very important,
and it’s powerful that it’s a woman thing.”
ESTEEM MAKEOVER BOOTCAMP
When Angie Graf, executive director of
Hope Southern Indiana, learned that a large
number of young women attending New
Albany High School were suffering from
issues related to low self-esteem — some so
severe that they were leading to cutting or
suicide threats — she was alarmed.
An already delicate situation can be made
worse, she said, when a suicide threat leads
to a girl being taken out of school to undergo
a mental-health evaluation. Graf knew there
had to be a better way, so she helped create a
program called the Esteem Makeover Bootcamp
for middle school and high school girls
who are dealing with low self-esteem. It won
the 2018 Impact 100 grant for $100,000. So
far, three of the four planned boot camps have
been held.
“Low self-esteem can mean a lot of different
things,” Graf said. “It happens in all
girls, there’s no demographic or ethnicity
that sways that.” Participants can either come
from a school or parent recommendation, or
self-enroll.
During the first bootcamp weekend, which
took place at the Country Lake Retreat Center
in Underwood, 18 different speakers talked
with the girls about the issues with which they
were dealing, and taught them self-defense
and yoga-based calming techniques. “That
was a unique activity that many of the girls
hadn’t experienced before,” Graf said.
As part of the experience, the girls also
created a group art piece that still hangs on
the wall at the Community Foundation of
Southern Indiana — it says “Imperfect” on
the canvas, but a flashlight shone on the ceiling
reveals the words “I’m perfect.”
The all-inclusive weekend also included ax
throwing, zip lining and archery, and ended
with hair and makeup tips and tricks. “The
first two days, we built them up from the
inside out,” Graf said “Then on Sunday, we
brought in hair and makeup experts and they
got makeovers all day Sunday.” The grant
money also was enough for each girl to take
home some cosmetics and a yoga mat.
“I love that [Impact 100] focused on
women and children,” Graf said. “It had its
own little niche, and we liked that.” She also
saw a connection between her organization
and St. Elizabeth and how they both served
single mothers, and was impressed by the difference
the grant money was able to make
there.
“Usually when you start a program, it’s iffy
for the first few years,” Graf said. “It made
all the difference in the world to have that
amount of money….we might have been tent
camping somewhere without that grant.”
In all, 200 girls will have the opportunity to
attend an Esteem Makeover Bootcamp. The
last one is scheduled for March 2021.
34 July / August 2020