Fifteen Years of Building Strong Families

The Handbags That Help Story

By Joy Brown

Back in 2008, a $3,400 gift from the then-new philanthropic group Handbags That Help (HTH) made possible a “Summer of Science” program offered for youth residing at a Findlay apartment complex that served financially struggling families. The organization’s other inaugural grants included $23,742 to purchase audio and visual recording equipment for two interview rooms at the Center for Safe and Healthy Children, and $26,858 that provided partial support for a

Habitat for Humanity Findlay/Hancock County women’s build. That $54,000 giving total, handed out during the Great Recession when so many were in dire financial straits, represented a powerful philanthropic punch for an organization with such a deceptively unassuming name.

Few organizations have arguably had as diverse of a regional assistance impact within the past decade and a half as HTH. Launched as a women’s giving circle, it has provided more than $620,000 to help children, families, individuals, and organizations, thereby changing the community landscape and lives for the better. Working mostly out of the public limelight, the group functions by pooling its money and reaching consensus about which giving areas it wants to focus on annually. Some additional recipients have included:

• $6,000 to help 20 students attend the Arts Partnership of Greater Hancock County’s then-new Summer Arts camp in 2014.

• $21,215 to Century Health in 2011 for Overcoming Barriers to Addiction Program.

• $8,000 to Jacobs Primary School for “Kid Whisperer” training in 2019.

• $23,945 to Raise the Bar in 2018 to support the implementation of Leader In Me in local schools.

• $8,000 to Family Resource Center of Northwest, Ohio in 2012 to support its Adolescent Suicide Prevention Project.

Grant amounts over the years have ranged from $1,700 to $38,000, and have addressed area needs pertaining to literacy, health, housing, abuse and poverty prevention, transportation, education and more. The group's most recent gifts in 2022 went toward improving family rooms at a shelter, outdoor education space for local schools and more.

Purses with Potential

According to original member Mary Beth Hammond, who served as the group’s first chair, former TCF President Barb Deerhake developed and furthered the idea for a local giving group comprised of highly motivated individuals who desired to make a difference. “Women’s giving circles were popping up all over the country and we wanted to be part of it,” said Hammond. “The influence of our pocketbooks is what got us started on the ‘handbags’ name, and it just stuck,” she said. Leaders whom Deerhake drew together then reached out to women they knew. More friends with big hearts were asked to join. Membership rapidly increased.

Hammond remembers being thrilled to be asked to participate. “My mother was always an avid volunteer, and it gave me a great sense of satisfaction to be at the start of something I think made her proud,” noted Hammond, who went on to serve as chair for a second consecutive year, and chaired HTH’s grant committee.

Sheree Wagner, who joined during the 2014-2015 grants year, said HTH gave her additional incentive to extend the volunteerism energy and skills she had cultivated when her daughters were in school. Along with helping others in need of various resources, she soon realized the group was helping her in unforeseen ways, too. The work, she maintained, continuously divulges striking information that engenders greater perspective on this community’s struggles, strengths, and resilience. There are compelling stories at every turn, making HTH’s purpose both challenging and rewarding.

“Each year there are so many projects and people that pull at your heartstrings,” emphasized Wagner. She was hard-pressed to pick just one that has impressed her the most. Hancock Christian Clearing House’s Happy Feet project received $25,000 “to help put shoes on the feet of children so they could go to school with proper footgear, not just wearing flip flops well into cold weather,” she said. Habitat for Humanity’s work that “keeps people in their homes and teaches them how to take responsibility for their home is huge. The Leader in Me program continues to make its mark in our schools and is contributing to make a future community we live in better. Open Arms’s domestic violence shelter’s program to help abused children get help within our community instead of being sent out of town for that help is unbelievably important,” she continued.

Julie Anderson, an original member, said HTH’s Center for Safe and Healthy Children grant that purchased audiovisual equipment profoundly resonated with her. The equipment reduced the practice of having children repeatedly tell their stories of abuse for legal evidence purposes, and better captures the sensory expressions of those who are understandably quiet and hesitant to share their traumatic experiences, she explained.

Additionally, Anderson said HTH grants continue to serve as supplemental funding sources and as a creative impetus for regional nonprofits that are typically constrained by the more stringent federal and state grant proposal rules. Instead of having to shape their appeals around grant-specific standards, groups supported with HTH money use those dollars for their own tailored outreach. This flexible and generative process “lets them dream a little bit” about ways they could expand their services, Anderson said.

Familial Focus

Concurrently, HTH over the years has refined to target efforts that “build strong families,” added Anderson. This provides a more general funding framework with a spotlight on multigenerational cohesion and success. “We have developed our priorities. We’re growing and changing all the time,” Anderson said.

The organization's 2020-2021 giving year was instrumental and reflects that familial focus. “During an exceptionally tough financial year for many due to Covid and the inability for some people to continue with their jobs we were able to keep families from being evicted from their homes,” Wagner pointed out. “These were people who had never asked for help before and fell through the cracks of the government funds that were available. These are families that were not uprooted from their homes and were given the relief of knowing they had a place to live.”

In some ways, family is literally a part of HTH. For instance, Wagner and one of her daughters joined after another daughter, Nikki Matheny, did. Matheny has gone on to be selected as this giving season’s incoming chair.

From an internal standpoint, members describe HTH as energizing and moving. Being a part of a group with like-minded, dedicated, and dynamic individuals who are all working together toward a common altruistic purpose is an experience like no other, they maintain.

“It’s so motivating to see a group of women in a community come together” to accomplish important goals and to learn more, Matheny said. Opinions on which endeavors to support can conflict but are strong, well informed, and geared toward effective stewardship. Dialogue and debate are essential, and comradery always prevails.

The group’s grant committee thoroughly vets annual proposals through stringent research and site visits, and each HTH member has grant decision-making buy-in. Established organization efforts are supported as are start-up programs and worthy newcomers that aim to provide help that is adaptive and relevant to the current times. Matheny pointed out that seed money for efforts like the locally available Dolly Parton Imagination Library, a literacy program that provides free books to children, helps establish sustainable resources.

“Handbags That Help encompasses everything I am passionate about from building strong families to women powerfully pooling their funds together to make a significant impact in the community,” said Tasha Dimling, a former chair and current TCF liaison who joined HTH in 2012.

Dimling said each grant has resonated with her “because family is one of my most treasured values” but that the group’s $30,000 gift to ADAMHS, to help create a Hancock County Trauma-Informed Learning Community, is one that particularly stands out. “That grant experience, process, and

result was significant to me, because of the positive effect it would have on the treatment of our community members,” she said.

Wagner credits HTH’s success and longevity to its membership.

“It takes a strong community to keep an organization going and relevant,” Wagner said. “This is an organization of strong women willing to give of their time, their money, and their many abilities to make a difference in the day-to-day lives of people in their community. If you want something done, give it to women to do, and they will rise to the challenge.”

For More Information

Handbags that Help now has 141 members and welcomes more. An individual membership is $500 per year or groups of up to five women can combine their resources to come up with the $500 total. All proceeds go toward grant assistance. The annual membership drive takes place from April through July. There are four meetings each year (attendance is optional) and there are opportunities for learning and committee service.

For more information, visit www.community-foundation.com/impact/handbags-that-help