Endeavor Foundation gives $4.9 million toward efforts to fight poverty, relocate domestic abuse victims

Endeavor Foundation in Springdale awarded grants totaling $4.9 million to two Fayetteville organizations, one that fights poverty and one that aids victims of domestic violence.

The foundation gave $3.9 million to Potter’s House for Potter’s House Life, a three-year initiative to transform the organization’s model to a two-generational approach that will provide services not only to underserved children but also to their parents and guardians, according to a press release from Endeavor Foundation.

In order to expand its focus to entire families, Potter’s House will create new programs and services, enhance existing ones, expand enrollment in its programming and volunteer base and pilot a replication of its Fayetteville model in Siloam Springs, according to the press release.

“We believe a diverse community is a healthy community,” Potter’s House President Shawn Schwartzman said in the release. “For the last 18 years, our mission has been to create that healthy community by building relationships between underserved children and the caring adults who volunteer to tutor, train or mentor them. The skill development we’ve seen in the kids has been wonderful, but it is the deep, long-lasting friendships between the kids and the adults that have been our true success.”

A $1 million grant went to the Donald W. Reynolds Peace at Home Family Shelter to fund for two years the Home Restored pilot program. The program will provide “rapid re-housing assistance” to survivors of domestic violence through financial assistance and advocacy, according to an Endeavor Foundation press release. The organization estimates the grant will help more quickly and efficiently stabilize 350 families, according to a press release from Endeavor Foundation.

“Domestic abuse must be viewed through the lens of both safety and housing,” Peace at Home CEO Teresa Mills said in the press release. “The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports that over 94% of domestic abuse survivors experience some form of economic abuse, in which the abuser creates a forced financial dependency by taking control of assets and preventing the abused from getting or keeping a job. As a result, survivors frequently do not have the financial resources to obtain stable housing when they attempt to leave an abusive relationship.”

The program will fill a gap that is not served through emergency shelters, which are “not always the best option for survivors,” according to the foundation. “Moving a family to an emergency shelter — especially one that is not in its home community — can mean giving up the very things that could improve the situation: employment, transportation, child care or a social support network.”

Also, there is an under-supply of emergency shelter resources in Northwest Arkansas, according to the release.

“In today’s ever more complex and interconnected world, families must have access to both resources and relationships in order to survive and thrive,” Anita Scism, president and CEO of Endeavor Foundation, said in the release. “That’s why Endeavor continues to make strategic, systemic investments in these areas. The Home Restored program will provide new, innovative resources to help some of the most vulnerable people in the region regain their independence, while Potter’s House Life will help build the personal relationships that all families rely upon for long-term support and inclusion in the community.”