United Way of the Wabash Valley today announced the grant award from their Financial Management Impact Council aimed at delivering income management tools, mentoring, and programs for the entire community by meeting families “where they are.”  This is the first grant opportunity issued from this council as it works together with all the other United Way councils to focus on the root causes of generational poverty within their 6-county service area of Clay, Parke, Sullivan, Vermillion, and Vigo Counties in Indiana and Clark County in Illinois.

The Financial Skills Development grant focuses on expanding financial literacy training, coaching, and/or mentoring in the Wabash Valley.  The United Way is awarding over $99,000 to three organizations for a one-year program.  The awarded programs include:

• Purdue Extension, Vermillion County – This project will utilize the Your Money, Your Goals Toolkit to train 100 community partners in the region to help them become mentors for economically vulnerable people.
• Reach Services, Inc. – Reach Services in partnership with Regions Bank and their Next Step financial training program will be providing financial classes for low to moderate-income individuals who struggle with financial challenges living from paycheck to paycheck or struggling to live with their limited resources.
• YMCAs of the Wabash Valley – The YMCA will use the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University curriculum to help individuals and families learn and adopt proven methods for achieving financial freedom.

Brett Taylor, co-chair of the United Way’s Financial Management Impact Council explained, “These grants, the programs they fund, and the organizations who present these programs are more important now than ever. Present circumstances are difficult for many in our community, especially those who are working hard to provide for their family and still finding it hard to make ends meet. Programs like these will help families become financially secure and can assist in breaking the cycle of poverty that has become the norm for too many in the Wabash Valley community.”

Richard Payonk, Executive Director of the United Way explained, “This council focuses on promoting financial coaching and income management to our entire community and these programs are great ways we can support that work.  Before the pandemic began, locally over 44% of our households were ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) and were unable to afford their basic necessities of housing, food, child care, health care, and transportation.  And now we feel like that has only increased.  In order to make progress on our bold goal of moving 10,000 families out of financial struggles and into stability they need to be able to support families in their financial education.”