Impact Alamance 2015 Annual Report by Alamance Reports

Glen Raven

Green Level

Elon

Burlington

Haw River

70 Graham

INTERSTATE

54 62

Alamance Bellemont

Swepsonville

Mission: We strategically invest in our community for health, hope and prosperity. Vision: Alamance County is the best place to live and thrive. (336) 221-0011 101 North Main St., Ste 105 Burlington, NC 27127

Values: Collaboration, Courageous Leadership, Integrity, Innovation, Measurable Change, Stewardship

REPORT to the COMMUNITY

COUNTING OUR

To our community, 2015 was a year of firsts for Impact Alamance. First strategic plan, first strategic partnerships and first investments in our community. We’ve taken the past two years to deepen our knowledge of Alamance County. We wanted to understand where we could make the biggest difference, and what it’s going to take to improve the long-term health of our community. We’ve chosen to focus our investments in areas proven to have the biggest impact on long-term, sustainable change. Investments in children, education and our local nonprofits benefit us all. Our county’s biggest needs are interrelated. The areas of our community where children have the least access to healthy foods and active play are the same areas where our children struggle in school. All the research shows us that their success in school will determine their economic and physical health as adults. That’s why we’ve chosen to invest the majority of our resources on our community’s children: building healthier environments, getting kids ready for kindergarten and strengthening education.

IMPACT 7 PLAYGROUNDS/ OUTDOOR LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

FITNESS EQUIPMENT AREAS

We believe that learning starts at birth and every child deserves an opportunity for a high quality, public education regardless of their zip code. As you’ll see in this report, we’re focused on building the partnerships necessary to make that a reality.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS FD Hornaday, Chair Nancy Hemric, Vice Chair Allen Gant, Treasurer Tim Clontz, Secretary Ginette Archival, MD Vernetta Bridges Ted Chandler Kathy Colville John Currin Martha Krall David Leeper Chapman McQueen, MD Alan Norton John Peterson Edward Woodall Staff Tracey Grayzer, President Marcy Green, Program Director Donna Buckner, Office and Grants Manager Maria Restuccio, Elon-Alamance Health Partner

In 2015, we granted more than $2 million to 46 local agencies. These partnerships were created because our grantees have the same vision we do — for Alamance County to be the best place to live and thrive. Alamance County is known for its collaborative spirit, and we’re thankful to have the opportunity to build on that strong foundation. We hope you’ll join us in celebrating the collective success of our community as we work toward a healthier, stronger future for us all.

ABOUT IMPACT ALAMANCE Impact Alamance is an independent foundation born out of Alamance Regional Medical Center’s merger with Cone Health in 2013. The merger allowed Cone Health to fund Impact Alamance with $54 million to invest in the long-term health and wellbeing of Alamance County residents. Grant making began in 20142015. Impact Alamance expects to invest about 4.5% of our total assets— about $2 million — each year in projects that fit our mission. Our ultimate goal is to create a healthier, smarter community that leads to a stronger future for us all.

Tracey Grayzer

Impact Alamance President

COMMUNITY GARDENS

PIECES OF FARMING EQUIPMENT to increase fresh produce

FD Hornaday

Impact Alamance Chair FARMER’S MARKET

DURING FISCAL YEAR 2015, IMPACT ALAMANCE AWARDED $2.08 MILLION IN GRANTS TO 45 ALAMANCE COUNTY ORGANIZATIONS. Community Health Fund $300,000

14% 1% 24% 1%

FARMER’S MARKET

Response to Community Needs $24,630

60%

Healthy Kids Focus Area $1,252,494 Contributions $23,193 Healthy Community Focus Area $482,874

43 COMMUNITY CONVENINGS

COUNTING OUR

IMPACT 7 PLAYGROUNDS/ OUTDOOR LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

FITNESS EQUIPMENT AREAS

Tracey Grayzer

Impact Alamance President

COMMUNITY GARDENS

PIECES OF FARMING EQUIPMENT to increase fresh produce

FD Hornaday

Impact Alamance Chair FARMER’S MARKET

DURING FISCAL YEAR 2015, IMPACT ALAMANCE AWARDED $2.08 MILLION IN GRANTS TO 45 ALAMANCE COUNTY ORGANIZATIONS. Community Health Fund $300,000

14% 1% 24% 1%

FARMER’S MARKET

Response to Community Needs $24,630

60%

Healthy Kids Focus Area $1,252,494 Contributions $23,193 Healthy Community Focus Area $482,874

43 COMMUNITY CONVENINGS

HEALTHY KIDS

ELI WHITNEY PLAYGROUND – $35,000

Healthier kids do better in school. And when they grow up, kids who did better in school do better. They tend to be healthier adults who live longer, more fulfilling lives.

Residents of the Eli Whitney community in rural, southern Alamance County don’t have convenient access to the same types of recreational facilities that urban residents do. For many years, though, Alamance County’s Department of Recreation and Parks Department has offered programs and activities for children and adults at the former Eli Whitney School gymnasium. There has been playground on the site for about 20 years, says Recreation and Parks Director Brian Baker, but the playground equipment hasn’t been updated. Impact Alamance’s $35,000 grant, along with matching funds from the county, will allow a new playground with modern equipment to be built.

Healthy Kids is one of Impact Alamance’s three focus areas. We fund projects and programs that help get all children, 0-5, physically, socially, cognitively and emotionally ready to succeed in school. We also support projects that build healthier environments where we live, work and play, ultimately increasing children’s access to healthy foods and physical activity. In 2015, Impact Alamance invested $1.25 million — 60 percent of our grant-making activity — in Healthy Kids initiatives.

“We were really happy to be able to partner with Impact Alamance to make the facilities better,” Baker says. He notes that the facility will likely see increasing use as families from Saxapahaw, which is growing, look for places their children can play.

2015 HEALTHY KIDS GRANTS Alamance Wellness Collaborative $57,000 to Active Living by Design to support the creation of a county-wide strategic plan for building healthier environments. Healthy Eating Active Living Grants — $243,126 Alamance Community College Alamance County Arts Council Alamance County Recreation & Parks Burlington Development Corporation Community YMCA of Alamance County Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina: Holy Comforter Church Healthy Alamance Building Healthy Environments — $886,518 Alamance County Arts Council City of Burlington Friends of Graham Recreation and Parks Town of Green Level Children’s Museum of Alamance County Early Childhood — $65,850 (see page 4) Burlington City Park Splash Pad — $500,000

Alamance County’s first public splash pad is scheduled to open in May 2016 in Burlington’s City Park. The splash pad, designed especially for children 12 and under, will be free to use and will give families and their children a new outdoor activity to encourage active play during the hottest months of the year. About half the funds for the project came from a $500,000 Impact Alamance grant, with the other half matched by city funds. “It is a physical fitness facility to get people, especially kids, out and off their electronic devices, exercising and being active,” says Tony Laws, the director of the Burlington Recreation & Parks Department.

ACC CHILD CARE – $52,000 Positive Attitude Youth Center Special Olympics North Carolina St. Paul’s United Methodist Church Sustainable Alamance The Salvation Army Walter Williams High School Parent Bulldogs United

The outdoor play area at Alamance Community College’s Child Care Center will now serve double duty for children, thanks to extensive renovations and an expansion funded by an Impact Alamance grant. Until last year, the center’s outdoor play area was primarily focused on helping children be active and develop gross motor skills such as running and climbing. Thanks to Impact Alamance’s funding, though, the play area will now become an outdoor learning environment. New sun protection shelters, planters for vegetables and other equipment will allow child care teachers to potentially conduct their entire day’s activities outside when the weather’s nice.

“We want that outdoor environment to be something they can learn all areas of curriculum in,” says Jeannie Proctor, who is head of the Early Childhood Department at the college. “They’ll be able to do art outside, language activities outside, math, science.” Children will help plant and care for vegetables in new planters, deepening their appreciation for healthy foods as well as teaching them how plants grow. In addition to the dozens of children of students, faculty and staff that the center serves, it also acts as a lab for early childhood students. The new facilities will give students the opportunity to practice outdoor, engaged learning activities and to learn how to design and create outdoor learning environments for young children. That knowledge, in turn, will spread to the child care centers where those students go on to work. 3

HEALTHY KIDS

ELI WHITNEY PLAYGROUND – $35,000

Healthier kids do better in school. And when they grow up, kids who did better in school do better. They tend to be healthier adults who live longer, more fulfilling lives.

How children grow and develop — physically, mentally and socially — during their early years forms the foundation for their academic performance once they enter school. A weak foundation, more often than not, leads to poor grades and slow advancement in school. Many studies have shown that early childhood education programs deliver significant, measurable returns. For example, one North Carolina study found that disadvantaged children who received early childhood education had lower blood pressure, lower levels of heart disease risk factors and other positive health outcomes, than their peers. In 2015, Impact Alamance invested $65,850 in Early Childhood initiatives, including efforts to spread critical pre-reading and early literacy skills that have been proven to help children do better in school. We also conducted a baseline study to better understand the health challenges young children entering the school system face. We expect these investments to grow substantially in the future.

2015 EARLY CHILDHOOD GRANTS – $65,850

Dolly Parton Imagination Library and Reach Out and Read Carolinas

IDENTIFYING YOUNG STUDENTS’ HEALTH PROBLEMS Every year, the Alamance Burlington School System collects a wealth of data on new kindergarteners. Parents and pediatricians fill out forms that the schools keep on file so they can understand what health problems the children might have. In 2015, Impact Alamance partnered with Elon University to collect all that information and enter it (minus individually identifying information) into a database, so schools and the community could better understand the health challenges young students might face, and how those might affect their academic success. Jean Rattigan-Rohr, associate professor in the Elon University School of Education, director of the university’s Center for Access and Success and executive director of community partnerships, oversaw the study.

“What we found is that many children in the county have asthma and allergies,” she says. “There are also significant obesity problems among young children and some issues with speech language delays.” 4

The data helps establish a baseline as the community works on ways to improve the health and school readiness of young children. It will also help guide future Impact Alamance grants.

SUPPORTING EARLY LITERACY Read to your children. The message from the research couldn’t be clearer. Children whose parents read to them develop language skills earlier, learn to read in school faster and more easily, and ultimately do better in school. But children from poor and minority households are much less likely to get this rich, early exposure to reading. Often it’s because those parents don’t have books or convenient access to libraries, and they may not have been read to themselves as children and so may not realize its value. For almost 10 years, the Alamance County Partnership for Children has been funding the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program in seven elementary school districts. The program provides children from birth to five years of age a new, age-appropriate book every month. Once the family is registered, the book simply comes in the mail. But the Partnership didn’t have the funds to offer it to all children in Alamance County. In 2015, an Impact Alamance grant enabled the Partnership to extend the program to all families in the county. “We had about 750 kids before Impact Alamance’s grant,” says Carrie Theall, executive director of the Partnership. After receiving the grant, the Partnership enlisted community partners, including the Burlington Police Department and Alamance Regional Medical Center, to get more kids signed up. Now, more than 1,900 children are participating, and the number continues to grow. In addition to the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, Impact Alamance has also funded Reach Out and Read, an evidencebased program that encourages early childhood literacy. That program, which was started by the Partnership with Smart Start funds, enlists pediatricians to talk to parents about the importance of reading to their young children, and provides doctors books they can give to their patients. Reach Out and Read was launched at Burlington Pediatrics. Dr. Hillary Carroll, one of the physicians there, is using the Impact Alamance funding to enlist other pediatricians at other practices. “When you do something that’s this inexpensive and this easy, it’s not a cure-all,” Theall says, “but it sure is a big help and it’s going to make a big difference.”

“

When you do something that’s this inexpensive and this easy, it’s not a cure-all,” Theall says, “but it sure is a big help and it’s going to make a big difference.

“

EARLY CHILDHOOD

2015 EARLY CHILDHOOD GRANTS – $65,850

Dolly Parton Imagination Library and Reach Out and Read Carolinas

The data helps establish a baseline as the community works on ways to improve the health and school readiness of young children. It will also help guide future Impact Alamance grants.

“

When you do something that’s this inexpensive and this easy, it’s not a cure-all,” Theall says, “but it sure is a big help and it’s going to make a big difference.

“

EARLY CHILDHOOD

HEALTHY COMMUNITY A healthy community is one where residents are physically and emotionally healthy, and able to energetically contribute to their community’s civic life and economic wellbeing. That’s the vision we have for Alamance County. We are focused on creating an environment where businesses, government agencies, community organizations, you and your neighbors, work together to create a healthier community. We believe that creating a healthier community is a mission that no single person, organization or agency can do alone. We must all work together. In 2015, Impact Alamance invested nearly half a million dollars to support that common vision and our community. In 2016 we will be supporting a community effort to help community leaders, businesses and organizations, and citizens like you, come together around a common vision to improve outcomes for our kids. We’ll partner with national leaders StriveTogether, and work to see that all children, regardless of their zip code, have an equal opportunity for success from cradle to career.

2015 HEALTHY COMMUNITY GRANTS – $482,874 CRADLE TO CAREER/COLLECTIVE IMPACT – $210,739 FrameWorks Institute and StriveTogether

TEACHER LEADERSHIP ACADEMY – $165,998 Alamance-Burlington School System (see page 9)

NONPROFIT CAPACITY BUILDING – $82,500 (see page 12)

GRANT WRITER ASSISTANCE – $9,000 (see page 12)

The StriveTogether Partnership is supported by Impact Alamance, but it is not an Impact Alamance program. It’s a community program that aims to help the county make a quantum leap in student outcomes.

“We can help, especially, the children that are being left behind, that are falling through the cracks,” says Rev. Larry Covington, senior pastor at Ebenezer United Church of Christ. “A lot of children don’t have a healthy starting point.” The idea is simple: The success of children in the classroom is influenced by many factors outside the classroom. If all the organizations and people who have an interest in kids — from schools to health care providers to social service organizations — coordinated their efforts and used a common set of metrics to guide their work, they would all be more effective. “If they all push in the same direction we’ll really have a significant impact on improving the quality of education,” says Derek Steed, an executive at Glen Raven and member of the StriveTogether executive committee.

Impact Alamance convened groups to discuss what our community’s most important educational and health priorities.

ABSS Superintendent Dr. William Harrison says he believes StriveTogether will strengthen an already strong sense of common purpose across multiple agencies and organizations. He also believes the effort will build on what ABSS has already begun with the five-year strategic plan it adopted in 2014. “We recognized early on that if we were going to truly make that vision a reality, we couldn’t do it ourselves,” he says. “We needed this community engaged in a very intentional manner.”

STRIVE TOGETHER EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Tony Foriest, Retired, NC Senate Gerry Francis, Elon University Tracey Grayzer, Impact Alamance Dr. William Harrison, Alamance Burlington School System Craig Honeycutt, Alamance County Dan Ingle, Alamance County Commissioner Cathy Johnson, Alamance Community College Heidi Norwick, The United Way of Alamance County Susan Osborne, Alamance County Social Services Jean Rattigan-Rohr, Elon University Stacie Saunders, Alamance County Health Department Rev. Ron Shive, First Presbyterian Church of Burlington Derek Steed, Glen Raven, Inc. Carrie Theall, The Alamance Partnership for Children Mac Williams, Alamance Area Chamber of Commerce

2015 HEALTHY COMMUNITY GRANTS – $482,874 CRADLE TO CAREER/COLLECTIVE IMPACT – $210,739 FrameWorks Institute and StriveTogether

TEACHER LEADERSHIP ACADEMY – $165,998 Alamance-Burlington School System (see page 9)

NONPROFIT CAPACITY BUILDING – $82,500 (see page 12)

GRANT WRITER ASSISTANCE – $9,000 (see page 12)

Impact Alamance convened groups to discuss what our community’s most important educational and health priorities.

TEACHER LEADERSHIP ACADEMY One factor that’s been proven, time and again, to affect student success in the classroom is the quality of the teaching they receive. That’s why Impact Alamance created a county-wide Teacher Leadership Academy in 2015. The Academy is part of an Impact Alamance commitment to invest $750,000 over five years for professional development for ABSS teachers and staff. Each year, 50 teachers — one from each school as well as 14 additional candidates from throughout the district — will participate in the year-long professional development program. Each participant attends an annual retreat and spends one full day each month learning about key tenets of the ABSS strategic plan and how they can support the plan in their schools. “It helps build the culture of lifelong learning that we want as a school system,” says Dr. Harrison, who attends the daylong retreats along with the teachers. He says the Academy is more powerful than other teacher development programs he’s seen. “I really believe it is a national model.” Teachers who participate in the Academy, including a two-day retreat in June, can also apply for grants to implement new and creative programs in their school. Impact Alamance funded $135,000 of these teacher innovation grants in 2014-2015.

2015 IMPACT ALAMANCE TEACHER LEADERSHIP ACADEMY GRANTS B. Everett Jordan Elementary School — $20,000 Makerspace E.M. Yoder Elementary — $6,920 LEGO story creation and filming to engage students in literacy and math-rich education Graham Middle School — $20,000 Innovation Lab Hillcrest Elementary — $3,550 Early exposure to higher education program E.M. Holt Elementary — $10,000 Science kits Walter Williams High School — $19,700 Innovative pilot program for at-risk students Pleasant Grove Elementary — $9,000 Common Core podcast for individual student instruction during physical activity 8

Marvin B. Smith Elementary — $2,800 Interactive maps and globally focused books Western Alamance Middle School — $1,630 Cameras for environmental education and direct scientific observation North Graham Elementary — $8,800 Equipment for physical activity and play in underserved area Alexander Wilson Elementary — $12,000 Technology-based classroom Western Middle School — $16,000 “Bring Your Own Device” pilot project Turpentine Middle School — $4,600 Upgrading a classroom to improve collaboration and focus among struggling students

Graham Middle School has created an Innovation Lab where students learn, about robotics, video production, 3-D printing and other advanced technology. The lab provides a way to engage students and connect what they’re learning to technology they may encounter in their careers. 9

IMPACT IN ACTION

In the 2014-2015, over 80 percent of these grants spurred some kind of community collaboration. As a result, our grantees were able to multiply the impact of their funds.

COMMUNITY HEALTH FUND – $300,000

RESPONSE TO COMMUNITY NEEDS — $24,630

Alamance Burlington School System

Allied Churches of Alamance County

Alamance Community College

Burlington Downtown Farmer’s Market

Alamance County - Alamance Juvenile Crime Prevention Council

Children’s Executive Oversight Committee

Alamance County Health Department Alamance County Public Libraries Benevolence Farm

United Way of Alamance County

CONTRIBUTIONS — $23,193

Centro la Communidad — Catholic Dioceses of Raleigh

Alamance Burlington School System

Children’s Museum of Alamance County

Alamance Children’s Theatre

Community YMCA of Alamance County Family Abuse Services of Alamance Friends of Alamance County Public Open Door Clinic of Alamance County Piedmont Health Services, Inc. Positive Attitude Youth Center, Inc. The Exchange Club’s Family Center The Salvation Army

The Salvation Army’s Boys & Girls Club and the Alamance YMCA needed new buses to replace aging, inefficient and unreliable buses. An Impact Alamance grant, matched by additional funds both organizations raised, enabled them to buy a total of four new buses. The two organizations worked together when shopping for the buses and negotiating to purchase them, paint them and wrap them.

Alamance County Arts Council, Inc. Alamance Partnership for Children Alamance Regional Charitable Foundation Children’s Museum Of Alamance County New Leaf Society Studio 1 United Way of Alamance County Women’s Resource Center in Alamance

ALAMANCE READS JR. The idea for Alamance Reads Jr. in 2015 was simple: Take the Alamance Reads community reading program and expand it so children could participate. Impact Alamance’s support and a network of school librarians helped make the program a home run. After more than a decade of promoting community reading programs to adults, Alamance Reads decided to encourage children to read and discuss Sue Corbett’s “Free Baseball.” A $7,000 grant enabled the program to scale up its ambitions considerably, says Alamance Reads Co-chair Michelle Mills, expanding it beyond a library-based program. The grant paid for hundreds of copies of the book, including 20 for each elementary school in the county, 50 for Alamance County Public Libraries, and additional copies to various agencies serving elementary school children. The book was even used by an adult literacy class at Alamance Community College. The grant also paid for Corbett, the author, to visit South Mebane Elementary School, where she gave a presentation and answered student questions. The presentation was recorded and shared with other elementary schools in the county. Mills says that efforts to encourage reading among children, like Alamance Reads Jr., can have a major impact. “Reading is essential to academic success, which is then essential to income stability when they get older,” she says. “If some of these children will stick to reading, that’s where we’ll see the results.”

“

Reading is essential to academic success, which is then essential to income stability when they get older... If some of these children will stick to reading, that’s where we’ll see the results.

“

Part of Impact Alamance’s grant making plan is to invest in organizations focused on our priority areas of healthy kids and health communities. In 2014-2015 we called this effort Impact in Action; in 2016 and beyond we’ll designate these grants as our Community Health Fund.

“It did help us have more buying power going in together,” says Sherri Henderson, executive director of the Salvation Army Boys & Girls Club of Alamance County. “The Club was able to get two buses, instead of just one.” 10

IMPACT IN ACTION

In the 2014-2015, over 80 percent of these grants spurred some kind of community collaboration. As a result, our grantees were able to multiply the impact of their funds.

COMMUNITY HEALTH FUND – $300,000

RESPONSE TO COMMUNITY NEEDS — $24,630

Alamance Burlington School System

Allied Churches of Alamance County

Alamance Community College

Burlington Downtown Farmer’s Market

Alamance County - Alamance Juvenile Crime Prevention Council

Children’s Executive Oversight Committee

Alamance County Health Department Alamance County Public Libraries Benevolence Farm

United Way of Alamance County

CONTRIBUTIONS — $23,193

Centro la Communidad — Catholic Dioceses of Raleigh

Alamance Burlington School System

Children’s Museum of Alamance County

Alamance Children’s Theatre

“

Reading is essential to academic success, which is then essential to income stability when they get older... If some of these children will stick to reading, that’s where we’ll see the results.

“

CAPACITY BUILDING We believe our nonprofit partners are a vital safety net.As part of our work to create a healthier, more vibrant community, Impact Alamance supports organizations in becoming more efficient and effective at their individual missions — so they can better serve those who need their help. Our grant making in this area includes capacity building work and grant writing assistance.

NONPROFIT CAPACITY BUILDING – $82,500 Alamance Citizens for Education Alamance County Dispute Settlement and Youth Services Allied Churches of Alamance County Ebenezer United Church of Christ Women’s Resource Center of Alamance County

GRANT WRITER ASSISTANCE – $9,000 Alamance Partnership for Children Family Justice Center United Way of Alamance County

Allied Churches harnesses the power of volunteers and the generosity of Alamance County residents to assist those who need food, shelter or help attaining self-sufficiency.

“

We’re excited for what the future looks like... We feel that this work that we’ve done has positioned us for growth.

“

WOMEN’S RESOURCE CENTER When the Women’s Resource Center of Alamance County applied for an Impact Alamance capacity building grant in 2015, the organization knew it needed to develop a new strategic plan. In the three years or so prior to that, it had lost significant funding due to state budget cuts and gone through a leadership change. Susan Watson, who came on board as executive director in January 2014, says the organization had survived a tough period, but knew it needed a clear strategy to move forward. A nonprofit consulting firm came in, did a deep dive and helped the Center develop a new strategic plan. “They helped the board set five top priorities,” Watson says. “They helped us develop a performance management tool that lays out our activities plus these top five priorities.” And that’s important for the thousands of women the Center serves each year, from the professional women who network and find community service opportunities through the Center to the women of all backgrounds who need guidance and support as they go through challenging work or personal transitions. “We’re excited for what the future looks like,” Watson says. “We feel that this work that we’ve done has positioned us for growth.”

The new strategic plan the Women’s Resource Center has developed and implemented will help the organization serve more women, and serve them better, in the years to come. 13

GRANT WRITER ASSISTANCE – $9,000 Alamance Partnership for Children Family Justice Center United Way of Alamance County

Allied Churches harnesses the power of volunteers and the generosity of Alamance County residents to assist those who need food, shelter or help attaining self-sufficiency.

“

We’re excited for what the future looks like... We feel that this work that we’ve done has positioned us for growth.

“

The new strategic plan the Women’s Resource Center has developed and implemented will help the organization serve more women, and serve them better, in the years to come. 13

Glen Raven

Green Level

Elon

Burlington

Haw River

70 Graham

INTERSTATE

54 62

Alamance Bellemont

Swepsonville

Values: Collaboration, Courageous Leadership, Integrity, Innovation, Measurable Change, Stewardship

REPORT to the COMMUNITY