DeKalb County Project Spotlight Winners

1st Place: Alliance Industries, Inc. – DeKalb Assoc For Developmentally Disabled

2nd Place: DeKalb Humane Society

Random Draw: County Line Church of God – Garrett Campus

Nominees:

  • Alliance Industries, Inc. – DeKalb Assoc for Developmentally Disabled – Alliance Industries is a non-for-profit organization that provides employment for people with disabilities in a supportive environment. Employees of Alliance Industries provide such services as light assembly and packaging for area industries in DeKalb County. To support the work input, operating expenses, and continued employment for 40+ employees, they receive funds through donations, fundraising, and grants.
  • Catholic Charities – Guided by Catholic teaching, Catholic Charities serves those in need, regardless of their faith, through transformative, empowering and dignity-affirming social service programs that seek to eliminate material, emotional and spiritual poverty across the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend. Services are available to all persons regardless of race, religion, ability to pay, or national origin.
  • County Line Church of God – Garrett Campus – County Line Church of God in Garrett is working on renovating their new building. This church serves the community of Garrett, and has recently served for free meal Tuesday and contributed hygiene bags to the local head start!
  • DeKalb Humane Society – The DeKalb Humane Society is an animal shelter in great need of donations to help feed and care for all of their animals. They take great pride in their work and have staff, board members, and management that work extremely hard to earn all they can to improve the animals well-being in hopes of finding their forever homes.
  • Excelsior Arts Academy and Youth Theater – Excelsior Arts Academy and Youth Theater focuses on young people ages 8 to 22 years old. Excelsior builds character, self-confidence, poise and respect for others through the use of the performing arts. Our students are from Fremont, Hicksville, Kendallville, Garrett, Leo, Ft Wayne, Ashley, Waterloo and Auburn. We produce 4 stage shows per year as well as hosting classes. Our latest project was Story Time, where Excelsior students, staff and families read a story every weekday at 11 am to keep kids interested in stories and give their parents a little break.
  • Junior Achievement serving Dekalb County – Junior Achievement remains dedicated to educating pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students about financial literacy, work readiness, and entrepreneurship through experiential, hands-on programs. JA programs help prepare young people for the real world by showing them how to generate wealth and effectively manage money, how to create jobs that make their communities more robust, and how to apply entrepreneurial thinking to the workplace. Students put these lessons into action and learn the value of contributing to their communities.
    Educators request JA programs year after year and they integrate the learning into their classroom curriculum. JA’s unique approach allows volunteers from the community to deliver the curriculum while sharing their own experiences with students. Embodying the heart of JA, classroom volunteers transform the key concepts to JA lessons into a message that inspires and empowers students to believe in themselves, showing them they can make a difference in the world. Dekalb County is currently serving students at every grade level in every school in the district. This opportunity will help fund the 2020-2021 school year programming in the school’s throughout Dekalb County. We plan to reach approximately 4,000 students in 193 classrooms.
  • Zion Lutheran Preschool – Our preschool services 60+ students every year from a 20 mile radius. We keep our tuition fees quite low so we can service more students in the area & give them a good solid beginning in education. Our only source of income is from tuition & a few fund raisers, which because of COVID have had to been canceled this year. Our chairs are 20+ years old & although they have held up well, they are showing signs of age. Some of the leg supports are starting to crack through the seats! These chairs cost roughly $22 each which we cannot purchase ourselves without help. Our shelving units are 30+ years old as well, so this is also where the funds would be used.