Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Northwest Indiana has been selected to receive a grant from ArcelorMittal in the second year of its special community investment initiative, “Building Resilience: Investing in Nonprofit Sustainability.” Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Northwest Indiana is part of a cohort of 14 nonprofit organizations in the Calumet region (Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana), Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Alabama that were awarded a total of $325,000.
Launched in 2017 as a pilot program, the Building Resilience program extends ArcelorMittal’s corporate giving strategy to focus on the sustainability and resiliency of its existing nonprofit partners. The program invests in areas of nonprofit management that are traditionally underfunded by foundations and corporations yet could have a significant impact on the long-term sustainability of the nonprofit organization.
ArcelorMittal received more than 55 applications for this year’s grant initiative. A full list of the 2018 Building Resilience cohort and their projects is available here.
After merging into Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Northwest Indiana in January 2018, Club leadership began assessing all Club facilities and focused on the East Chicago Katherine House Club, an aging facility with lots of history. In East Chicago’s Harbor area stands the “old” Katherine House. Holding a regal presence, it sits across the street of its current home, the East Chicago Katherine House Boys & Girls Club. Built in 1919 by the local faith based community, its purpose was to serve as a youth center. Fast forward to 1973. Through organizational growth, the East Chicago Club became the third Club added to the family. Club founder, Lowell Robertson, worked with the Katherine House to merge into the now present East Chicago Katherine House Club. Contingent upon the merger, girls were accepted as members. In 1992, the current East Chicago Katherine Club was built and has remained a viable resource for youth and family residents. The purpose of serving youth remains the same, but the vision for providing youth opportunities has changed. Each child deserves the best opportunities to succeed. Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Northwest Indiana’s vision for a redesigned and modern East Chicago Katherine House Club will provide members with access technology advancing learning in a safe environment. Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Northwest Indiana enlisted the support of ArcelorMittal Foundation to be part of this vision and process by submitting a resiliency investment grant application. ArcelorMittal Foundation responded to the grant request by providing a $35,182.80 grant to help build the technology and safety infrastructure of the East Chicago Katherine House Club, thus providing youth with Club with strong technology upgrades to help them in their academic pursuits – all in a safe environment with updated security systems.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Northwest Indiana has been a long-time partner with ArcelorMittal. The foundation has helped individual Clubs invest in and provide STEM programming to youth ages 5 to 18 years of age. In addition, ArecleorMittal employees have a long history of volunteering and participating in Club programs.
“When it comes to youth success and providing positive opportunities to children in an after-school environment, ArcelorMittal has been one of our strongest partners. We are thrilled that the foundation decided to fund technology and safety infrastructure at our East Chicago Katherine House Club. The East Chicago community and its residents are resilient people and, quite frankly, the youth of this community deserve all the modern amenities to help them learn, grow and be successful adults. We cannot thank ArcelorMittal enough for their involvement and for understanding our vision in providing youth with the best possible learning opportunities when they are not in school,” states Ryan Smiley, president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Northwest Indiana.
“Resiliency is at the core of our work at ArcelorMittal. This means that from our products and business strategy to the implementation of our 10 sustainable development outcomes, we believe in driving innovation, building capacity and increasing sustainability,” said Bill Steers, general manager of corporate responsibility at ArcelorMittal Americas. “We are proud to extend this commitment to our local community nonprofit partners.”
