Community Impact Report

Understanding Our Community

GIFT VII planning grants supported a comprehensive planning process. This allowed the Community Foundation Alliance to utilize these grant dollars to contract with Chmura to collect and compile data, and Thomas P. Miller & Associates (TPMA) to lead the planning process.


For this process, the nine-county affiliates were grouped based on geographic proximity, as well as factors such as the overlap of industry and services, common time zones, and work travel patterns. Learn more about Region A which includes, Daviess, Knox, and Pike counties.

Key Development Indicators

For each subregion, Chmura identified 46 meaningful development indicators, conforming to four primary categories.

Demographics

Economics

Human Capital

Quality of Place

Determining Top Priorities

TPMA reviewed all data collected by Chmura, analyzed additional data, and explored basic demographic trends for each county using information from the U.S. Census Bureau.


TPMA then identified five potential priority areas of need and opportunity for each subregion, to be further prioritized through a series of Community Forums that helped identify the county specific issues and opportunities

Increased Economic Opportunity

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    Plans looked to increase economic opportunity. To accomplish this, plans suggest the subregion focus on:

    • Retaining business
    • Strengthening regional collaboration and assets
    • Strengthening partnerships with economic development organizations, local elected officials, and business and community leaders

Workforce Development

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    Plans looked to increase workforce development opportunities. Subregions focused on:

    • Agribusiness Food Processing
    • Advanced Materials
    • Transportation Equipment Manufacturing

Infrastructure

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    Subregions focused on:

    • Housing
    • Drainage
    • Broadband

Obesity

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    • Currently, there are programs to motivate residents to become more physically active
    • There are programs to educate residents about nutrition to help motivate change in nutritional behavior
    • Things to consider: food environment and access to exercise opportunities

Mental Health & Substance Abuse

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    These two topics can be interconnected, but not always

    • Struggle to access care
    • Cost for treatment is a barrier
    • Shortage of Mental Health providers
    • Alcohol, opiod, and meth abuse or dependency
    • Drug addicts have unmet healthcare needs because mental health issues are not addressed
    • Mental Health Care providers are strained
    • Need for more addiction counselors
    • Good employment opportunities play a role in helping people with substance use disorders seek the help they need
    • There is also a need for Primary Care Physicians

Community Forums

Structure

The Community Leader Forums began the process of narrowing to a single topic area that would be addressed in the Lilly Endowment GIFT VII Implementation Grant proposal. Forum participants included local leaders of nonprofit organizations, municipal and elected officials, business and industry leaders, and active community philanthropists. Forums were conducted with an initial overview of the background research and an explanation of how the top five topics were chosen. In addition, participants added the following topics: 


  • Transportation
  • Education


Participants prioritized topics and held active discussions about what they have observed about the specific topic. Upon completion, TPMA facilitated Regional Board Forums for each subregion to further narrow the topics. These forums followed a similar process to ensure consistency.

Forum Findings

Infrastructure

Increased Economic Opportunity

Mental Health & Substance Abuse

During the forums, several areas of improvement were documented. With regards to Infrastructure, a few key concerns were discussed: housing availability and affordability, access to broadband, and availability of transportation. With regards to Increased Economic Opportunity, concerns highlighted were: difficulty attracting businesses, workforce development/attraction, and a lack of quality of place amenities.

Leading Change

Overview

The Knox County Community Foundation has chosen to address Increased Economic Opportunity by supporting workforce development efforts through STEM education. The GIFT VII Implementation grant will support The Pantheon Education Center’s partnership with Purdue University to offer STEM programming for middle and high school students to all Knox County schools and supporting a middle school STEM Summer Camp. Purdue University will provide teacher presentation materials, hands-on experiments, and evaluation tools, all aligned with the Indiana Department of Education standards.

Implementation Grant Recipient


The Pantheon Education Center

Collaborating Organizations


Purdue University, Knox County Schools

Activity Update

  • March 2023

    During the previous six-month reporting period, the Pantheon decided to hold two summer Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) camps instead of one to increase participation among North Knox students, and the Knox County Community Foundation organized a Technical Trades Career Expo in conjunction with the Pantheon to connect high school students with job opportunities. In addition, Kreg Battles, STEM Program Coordinator, is working with Rivet High School and North Knox High School to implement the Hardware Store Science (HSS) STEM curriculum.

  • September 2022

    The Pantheon held the first middle school summer Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) camp at Lincoln High School in August 2022. The camp was open to all Knox County incoming seventh and eighth graders at no charge. Due to the hands-on nature of the camp and to allow for optimal teacher-to-student ratios, the camp was limited to 26 students. Because of a successful camp, the Pantheon plans to expand and offer the camp to 50 students in the summer of 2023.


    The Hardware Science Store (HSS) STEM curriculum is now being implemented at South Knox High School in its Integrated Chemistry Physics (ICP) classes, and as a result, will serve approximately 40 more Knox County students during the 2022/2023 school year. The HSS curriculum continues to serve approximately 200 students at Lincoln High School. Kreg Battles, Program Coordinator, will continue to work with Rivet and North Knox high schools to explore ways to fit the HSS STEM program into their curriculums.

  • March 2022

    The Hardware Store Science STEM curriculum is now serving over 200 9th graders on a daily basis. Program coordinator, Kreg Battles has contacted Vincennes Rivet, North Knox and South Knox schools in the past quarter about implementing Hardware Store Science. South Knox plans to implement the program during the 2022/2023 school year. North Knox and Rivet are very interested in participating in the future. The program coordinator is also planning a Middle School STEM Camp for late summer of 2022. This will be available for incoming 7th and 8th graders from all Knox County schools. The camp will focus on fun, hands-on STEM activities.

  • September 2021

    This past summer Purdue Chemical Engineering intern, Jacob Wilson, organized curriculum materials, built classroom experiments, and worked with two ICP teachers to prepare for the implementation of the program in the 2021-2022 school year. The Pantheon has hired Kreg Battles, a retired science educator with 40 years of classroom experience, as the coordinator for this program. He is adapting materials from Purdue for use in Lincoln’s ICP classes and will serve as a mentor to the two new ICP teachers at the high school. The Hardware Store Science STEM curriculum has been successfully implemented at Lincoln High School since August 2021. Kreg is hoping to incorporate the STEM program in other Knox County schools in the future. The first Summer STEM camp is being planned for summer 2022.

  • March 2021

    The Knox County Community Foundation awarded GIFT VII Implementation Grant funds to the Pantheon Education Center in December 2020. A successful launch of the program is anticipated for the Fall 2021 semester.