FCC supports Neighborhood House

by Rick Tipton

Founded in 1896, Neighborhood House has served seven generations of Louisville families. Situated in the Portland neighborhood, the organization serves families from across the West End of Louisville, with most of our families living in Portland, Russell, Chickasaw, and Shawnee neighborhoods. As a traditional community center, they never turn a family away, and they serve families of all sizes, ages, and backgrounds. Neighborhood House serves as a community anchor for their neighborhoods, and has been supporting families through changing times for decades.

Neighborhood House was born of the national Settlement House movement, inspired by Jane Adams, and incorporated in 1896. The community center serves families from early childhood through school and adulthood, and into their senior years. By meeting families’ immediate and long-term needs, supporting families, and inspiring dreams, they are changing lives every day.

Neighborhood House's mission is to provide individuals with the opportunities and experiences needed to enhance the quality of their lives. Their vision is to break the cycle of poverty for our children and families. Because the cycle of poverty is unlikely to be broken in one generation, they provide programming for the family at every stage of life, no matter their age. Their multi-generational approach is education-focused and specifically designed to provide opportunities for life-long success, improve well-being, and strengthen the community.

Neighborhood House's Child Development Center provides quality early childhood education during this important time of brain development, ensuring that each child enters kindergarten with the skills they need to be successful in the classroom environment. Their Youth Program provides engaging, educational programming to school-age youth with after school, Saturday and summer programs designed to help kids thrive through life skills development, college and career exposure, academic programming, field trips, academic intervention, and many other enrichment opportunities. Last year, they served 41 students through our NTI program, helping with schoolwork Monday through Friday, meeting an urgent need for many of the parents and children they serve. This fall, the center returned to normal afterschool program.

Funding from FCC’s Wholeness Ministry grant directly supported the organization's work to provide a lower staff-student ratio and hire and maintain the highest quality staff to continue to support their families. When Neighborhood House first began their NTI programming, they saw that 100% of their youth were at least one grade level behind in reading and math. During their 2020-2021 NTI Academy, with support from the team, the students far exceeded outcomes of the average Jefferson County Public School student. Their NTI students saw significant academic growth -- 82% improved or maintained their GPAs. On average among their elementary and high school students, 73% improved or maintained their math grades because of the personalized support they received from the Youth Advocate staff members.

The wholeness grant used to fund this ministry was made possible through your faithful financial support of our church and its ministries and help fund a variety of efforts to make our world a better place.

You can find more examples of those efforts or apply for a grant to make the world a better place by clicking here.