We Raise Foundation Awards $100,000 GrantsPlus Grant to Community Warehouse
Itasca, IL – We Raise Foundation is excited to announce we recently awarded a $100,000 three-year GrantsPlus Grant to Community Warehouse in Milwaukee, Wis., for its “Partners in Hope Paid Training Program.”
Founded in 2005, Community Warehouse is a faith-based organization dedicated to helping willing men, women, and families impacted by incarceration overcome social, economic, and criminal justice system barriers. Individuals released from incarceration often face significant barriers to reentering society, including difficulty finding employment, securing housing, and accessing social services. Many also struggle with mental health, addiction issues, and strained relationships with family and friends.
Community Warehouse’s two programs, Partners in Hope and the eight-week training program, help formerly incarcerated individuals successfully return to society. Partners in Hope is a robust one-week reintegration initiative. A cohort of 8-12 individuals participate in soft skills workshops and training on essential skills such as goal setting, time management, and financial literacy. They also learn how to find and keep a job, interact with their parole officers, build a resume, and face their fears.
After graduating from the Partners in Hope program, some participants lack work experience and have difficulty finding employment. To better prepare them, Community Warehouse offers them paid training at their home improvement stores during which they learn basic skills such as arriving on time and understanding and completing their assignments. They also learn the proper way to communicate with management and coworkers, and receive a certification for forklift operation.
“We Raise Foundation is proud to partner with Community Warehouse on their Partners in Hope Paid Training program,” said Paul Miles, President and CEO of We Raise Foundation. “Each person that seeks to find a better path for themselves deserves our best effort to help them achieve success. Community Warehouse invests in people because they know we are all more than the worst thing we’ve done. It is a privilege to support an organization and its leadership that invests in people and community.”
We Raise GrantsPlus grants support new and innovative projects in Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Oakland/San Francisco working at the intersection of poverty, violence, and inequality. In addition to the grant award, We Raise will also provide Community Warehouse with critical capacity building services, including a resource development assessment, incentivized crowdfunding campaign, and research to help strengthen and sustain their program.
About We Raise Foundation
Motivated by the belief that freedom is grace in action (Galatians 5:1a), We Raise Foundation partners with Christian nonprofit organizations and emerging leaders working at the intersection of poverty, violence, and inequality. We have a preference for funding solutions within the areas of education, workforce development, and criminal justice and employ a unique approach to our investing by coupling program funding with a variety of robust value-added services that empower our grantees to grow their solutions. As a result of these value-added services, every $1 that donors invest through We Raise multiplies into more than double the benefit to the organizations we support. To learn more, please visit weraise.org. You can also find We Raise on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
