After training, the foundation gives students small grants to launch their own community service project, which they develop with their teachers. Projects have included sprucing up a park, raising funds and in-kind donations for a family who lost their home in a fire, and building flower boxes for elderly people so they can tend plants without straining their backs. In the program's first year, students completed 28 projects that took more than 12,000 hours of volunteer time. Since then, the numbers have continued to grow each year. This program has had an amazing effect on students and the community.
Kids learn how happy they can make someone through a small amount of money, time and effort.
But the foundation didn't stop there. The real beauty of this program is that it's totally youth-driven. One of the group's most innovative projects was raising support for a young boy named Carlos Najera who desperately needed a kidney transplant. His family was poor and there appeared to be no hope for young Carlos. Inc. The Noble County Community Foundation is clearly making an impact on both the community and the future of its young people.