Wabash County (City of Wabash) Project Spotlight
Nominees:
The Arc of Wabash County Inc. – The Arc of Wabash County Pre-Employment Transition Summer “Camp” for High School students with disabilities. Arc conducts a six week summer careers “camp” for qualified high school students with disabilities. In a fun, interactive, peer group setting, students explore career interests, vocational dreams, and the skills necessary for entering the workforce after high school. The “camp” includes a short, paid work experience with selected local employers in order to gain valuable work experience and gain confidence that comes from a workplace mentoring relationship.
Babe of Wabash County – BABE is an incentive-based program that partners with different businesses and organizations in the county that promote good health, education, and connections. Parents earn boutique coupons whenever they take their children to these partners. Coupons can be redeemed for diapers, wipes, clothing, cribs, etc. They have educational programs as well as a playroom where parents are encouraged to bring their children at any time during operational hours BABE is NOT income based and they encourage families of all income levels, shapes, background, and sizes to participate in the programs which helps build stronger families and communities.
Common Ground Prayer Ministry – The Common Ground Prayer Ministry is a great hub for people to come together or alone in Wabash. They are hoping to connect all of the Churches in Wabash and surround our area with prayer. CG hosts several events throughout the year, the largest is typically the National Day of Prayer. They have hosted training workshops on prayer and worship. Also, several prayer walks happen throughout the year. Many small groups meet at the prayer room for weekly prayer meetings. They deserve this award to continue to serve our community in the most important way possible, building relationships with each other and our God.
Junior Achievement serving Greater Wabash – Junior Achievement serving Greater Wabash serves MSD of Wabash County, Wabash City Schools as well as St. Bernard Elementary School. JA works with the schools to ensure our students have the proper knowledge of Financial Literacy, Work Readiness and Entrepreneurship. JA provides local volunteers to go into the classroom and teach these subjects. JA also send students from Greater Wabash to JA BizTown and Finance Park in Fort Wayne.
Lagro Canal Foundation – The Lagro Canal Foundation is focused on promoting revitalization of the Lagro community through education, historic preservation, beautifying public spaces, and marketing natural amenities. We recently celebrated the completion of exterior work on three historic downtown buildings. We continue work on the interior and have started the marketing process for these unique spaces. We are excited to add to the list of small businesses now open (or opening soon) in Lagro: 950 Speakeasy & Bistro, Firehouse Coffee & Tea, The Creamery, JD Metal Fabrication, and the Hopewell House. We believe that improvements in each small community contributes to economic development for all of Wabash County.
LIFE Center – LIFE Center is Wabash’s only pregnancy resource center. Offering free, lab quality pregnancy tests and limited OB ultrasounds. LIFE Center also offers peer counseling and community resources. A free Mommy and Me Boutique for children in clothing sizes preemie through 5T is also available along with maternity clothes for expectant moms. A Young Mom’s program is also offered, allowing these young women a support system of others walking the same path.
Wabash County 4H Junior Leaders – Wabash County 4-H Junior Leaders is a county wide 4-H project that is designed to teach leadership skills to students in grades 7 through 12. Junior Leader members provide community service through hands on activities with the citizens of our county. Some of our activities include: appreciation dinners, providing companionship to the elderly, and serving at public dinners just to name a few. We enjoy interaction with others and servicing our community to provide great leadership skills to the youth members of 4-H. We hope that through the skills we learn, other members will be encouraged to join Junior Leaders. These experiences will go before us into the future and help us with many life skills.
Wabash County Animal Shelter, Inc. – We are in need of new dog food and water dishes. Most of what we have been using are plastic dishes and pails. Some of the dogs chew on them and we are afraid they will chew off a piece of plastic and get stuck in their throat or somewhere else in their digestive system. They are all different sizes and take up a lot of valuable storage space. We need two sets of the pails because on Mondays, (our sanitize day), we have to replace all of them with fresh sterilized pails. Recently, a very generous person and their friends raised some money and bought us some very nice Stainless Steel pails with hooks that fasten to the dog kennel gates. These pails are harder for the dog to spill the contents, stack well together to save storage space, and are easier to clean than the plastic bowls and pails. They also do not take up valuable floor space in the kennels as well! We need a lot of these so we can use them for both food as well as for water. Since they are a nice heavy-duty Stainless Steel pail, they should last a long time but are expensive.
Wabash County Christmas Spirit – Our mission is to provide Christmas gifts to Wabash County children whose caregivers may otherwise not have the means from which to provide these gifts. It is our desire to ensure every child in Wabash County has an opportunity to experience the JOY and HOPE of Christmas by providing gifts to those children who may not otherwise have this opportunity. Our mission is to receive all of Wabash County’s gifts –their time, energy, and charity -repackage it, and distribute it as hope to all of those families In need in Wabash County.