Nearly $150,000 awarded by Philanthropic Society to local agencies

Jun. 23—Three area agencies working to expand services to meet local needs were recently awarded nearly $150,000 by the Philanthropic Society of the Joplin Regional Community Foundation, an affiliate of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks.

Community Support Services of Missouri, the Alliance of Southwest Missouri and Kansas City University's College of Dental Medicine received approximately $50,000 each for initiatives that will affect children through senior citizens. The grant presentation was put on during the society's award banquet luncheon Tuesday at Missouri Southern State University.

The Joplin Regional Community Foundation's Philanthropic Society launched in 2018 to provide high-impact grants to area agencies and nonprofits that make a noticeable difference in their communities. Now the philanthropic arm of the foundation has distributed $375,000 in grants to groups serving Joplin, Webb City and Carl Junction.

Grant applications during this cycle were based on three categories: Safe Joplin, projects that reduce violence, property crime and child abuse; Well Joplin, projects to improve public health and access to health care; and Ready Joplin, projects to increase preschool enrollment.

The 18 grant applications submitted were narrowed down to six finalists by the judging committee, and then the finalists were selected by ballot from Philanthropic Society members.

Nancy Good, who chairs the Philanthropic Society's grant committee, said although a grant wasn't awarded in the Safe Joplin category, this year's recipients demonstrated a drive to address the area's current problems.

"We're looking for something that moves the needle," she said. "We feel like with the $50,000, somebody has the capability of making a big difference in a challenge that we have in the community."

The grant for Community Support Services was awarded under the Ready Joplin category; the other two grants were awarded under the Well Joplin category.

—Community Support Services of Missouri, which serves children and adults with developmental disabilities, received a check for $48,125 to renovate two unused classrooms at the Community Support Services of Missouri Early Learning Center in Webb City. The upgrade will add up to 30 children with developmental delays to the program.

Jhan Hurn, president and CEO of Community Support Services of Missouri, said the agency merged with Cerebral Palsy of Tri-County in 2018 to expand services, and its early learning center building is housed in a former clinic, where it serves 60 individuals.

"We have a large waiting list now and a lot of kids who need to learn how to move into the school system environment," Hurn said. "The best chance to be able to help a child is in those developmental years, so this gives us that extra help for those kiddos to do that. We work with all of the school systems directly, and it's a pretty exciting thing. You get the most opportunity to help overcome those delays that they have, whether it's speech or a behavioral issue."

Established in 1978, Community Support Services of Missouri serves more than 1,500 people with developmental disabilities in Southwest Missouri.

—The Alliance of Southwest Missouri — a nonprofit partnership that works with children and families in the areas of health, safety, prevention and education — was awarded a $50,000 check to fund a new program called Sources of Strength in four Joplin-area schools.

Jen Black, executive director of the alliance, said the intent is to make Southwest Missouri the safest place for children to thrive by focusing on physical, mental and emotional health. The grant funding will be used for a mental health program based in Denver that was implemented in Neosho Junior High before the pandemic.

"We're trying to get them to focus on the strength and their wheelhouse versus all of the negative thoughts and lies that they're struggling with, which is important to our mission and our community," Black said. "When I learned about this program, the fact that it focuses on the positive rather than negative, I wanted to bring it here."

Sources of Strength is a peer-to-peer suicide prevention program that promotes connections between students and caring adults. The agency's overall goal to launch the program in all middle and high schools in its service area in Jasper, Newton, McDonald and Barton counties.

—KCU's College of Dental Medicine, which is being built alongside the College of Osteopathic Medicine on the Joplin campus of Kansas City University, received a $50,000 check to help fund the project that will offer more dental care and health access for rural communities.

The groundbreaking for the dental school was held in May, and construction is set for completion in 2023, making Joplin the smallest community in the U.S. to sport a medical and dental school. Currently, the Four-State Area has only three dental schools.

"I've been on the faculty and board of dental schools throughout the country, and I can tell you that there is not one community that has raised half of the money that's needed to build a dental school, except Joplin, Missouri, and the regional area," said Linda C. Niessen, dean of KCU College of Dental Medicine.

In June 2019, KCU announced plans to open a College of Dental Medicine in response to the critical shortage of dentists in the Four-State Area. All the counties within a 125-mile radius of Joplin are designated as Dental Health Professional Shortage Areas by the Health Resources and Services Administration.