Grantee News
Foster Adopt Connect
Within the last few years, Foster Adopt Connect started a campaign to purchase and renovate their Southwest Missouri Resource Center. The success of this campaign supported Foster Adopt Connect’s growth in Missouri, including the piloting of new services and expansion of existing programs.
Partners such as the HFF have supported their agency through the initial COVID-19 outbreak, and allowed them to seek new grants and contracts in 2020 which will support operations at three new resource centers in Missouri and Kansas.
Foster Adopt Connect’s Southwest Missouri Resource Center has experienced sustained growth in services and partnerships, and has greatly expanded the impact of programs in southwest Missouri. During 2019 and 2020, the number of children and families engaging services through the Southwest Missouri Resource Center rose from 1,012 in 2018 to 2,362 in 2020, a 133% increase. They also added 3 new full-time staff to help us serve the expanded number of families.
James River Basin Partnership
In 2020, the Hulston Family Foundation worked with the James River Basin Partnership to help provide both virtual and hands-on education to residents of the James River watershed.
The JRBP had to switch up their strategy as they worked to find new and innovative ways to share their mission through safe, socially-distanced events and virtual experiences. As they continue to work through the affects of the global pandemic, have relied on grant funding in order to accomplish their mission of educating their communities and preserving the natural environment.
Though they weren’t able to host their larger annual stream clean-up’s, they still managed to host several smaller socially distanced events. In total, 34 volunteers helped to remove over 1,500 pounds of trash from in and around the local waterways.
The Rabbit hOle
Over the last few years, grant funding has been instrumental in The Rabbit hOle’s efforts to advance building renovations and begin exhibit production for the world’s first Explor-a-Storium.
In 2020 and 2021, partnership support has had an even deeper impact in the face of the pandemic, helping them to not only sustain their staff, but to grow their creative team so they could keep the project moving forward. As an artist-driven project, this is crucial.
We are proud to announce that The Rabbit hOle is poised to open their doors to the public in 2022 so they can begin delivering on their mission to inspire and ignite the reading lives of young people and their families for generations to come.
Pete’s Garden
Now in their second year of operation, Pete’s Garden has continued to deliver on their promise of minimizing food waste and feeding more families in the Kansas City community.
With the help of organizations such as the Hulston Family Foundation, Pete’s Garden was able to recover over 1,100 pounds of prepared food from donors and distribute over 15,000 meals in Q2 of 2021 alone. With over 150 hours volunteered by 20 volunteers, Pete’s Garden successfully partnered with agencies and donors (including Operation Breakthrough, YMCA, University of Kansas Health System and Sporting KC) to make this quarter their most successful yet.
Looking forward, Pete’s Garden is making it a priority to recover more prepared surplus food by engaging in corporate dining programs and partnering with new food donors such as caterers and entertainment venues.
MU Veterans Clinic
The Veterans Clinic located at the University of Missouri works to successfully pair law students with veterans and their families to secure disability benefits through the legal system. And in recent years, their success has skyrocketed.
After starting a 5-year grant partnership with the Hulston Family Foundation in 2019, the MU Veterans Clinic has made an enormous impact on the veteran’s community: directly assisting over 600 Missouri veterans and helping them secure more than $7 million in compensation.
The Clinic has now trained hundreds of attorneys in veterans law, resulting in a 100% success rate in discharge upgrade cases. These impressive results are undoubtably life changing for the Clinic’s veterans and their families.
Missouri Prairie Foundation
With grant money received in 2021, The Missouri Prairie Foundation (MPF) purchase a 12-foot brush hog this spring. A brush hog is a mowing implement that attaches to a tractor, and they will be using it this year and well into the future to efficiently carry out fireline mowing, invasive brush management, prairie reconstruction maintenance and trail mowing on their prairies.
MPF now owns 26 properties totalling 3,750 acres. This 12-foot brush hog (as opposed to their old 5-foot brush hog) will greatly increase MPF’s ability to complete necessary prairie management activities in an efficient manner.
The new equipment is very important for fireline establishment so MPF can carry out critically important dormant-season burning. Prairie reconstructions on degraded, non-prairie areas require mowing, after planting, to reduce weed competition. Also, MPF mows trails on prairies for the general public and for field days, guided hikes and for school groups. This will allow them to work much more efficiently far into the future to steward rare and diverse prairies.
CASA of Southwest Missouri
Due to the drastic increase of children entering foster care in 2020 and 2021, CASA had over 100 foster children waiting to be assigned immediately. The community is currently facing a crisis in child abuse and neglect, and many are unaware of the problem or how to make a difference.
With the help of partners like the Hulston Family Foundation, CASA has successfully been able to increase their capacity to serve more children in foster care. They have used grants to directly support building space, salaries and other expenses related to running their organization. This support was deemed crucial as CASA continued to recruit more volunteers and provide much-needed advocates for children in foster care.
As of 2021, CASA currently has 217 volunteers serving 340 children in Greene and Christian counties. And this number is constantly growing.
Harvesters
Harvesters has been on the front line of fighting hunger for over 40 years. The COVID-19 pandemic presented a complex crisis with economic effects unlike anything since the Great Depression. In Harvesters’ 26-county service area, 387,210 (or one in seven people) may face hunger this year, including one in five children.
Families, children and seniors living with food insecurity are now turning to food pantries and mobile distributions in record numbers:
– Partner agencies have report needing 40% more food.
– Visits to Harvesters “Get Help” webpage have increased nearly 250%.
To address this emerging crisis, the Hulston Family Foundation partnered with Harvesters to help provide 2 semi-trucks of food for their mobile distribution at the Truman Sports Complex on September 29, 2020. Harvesters was able to serve 1,428 households with nutritious foods that day, which is life-saving for many as several of the pandemic government assistance programs had been discontinued.
