IMPACT! Hits the Mark

by Ray Waddle

Day after day, Rev. John Hilley saw endless waves of homeless people arrive on the steps of Nashville’s Downtown Presbyterian Church, where he was minister.

The homeless ministry was strong there, but Hilley was restless. He wanted to do something to choke off the incessant undertow of despair that pulls people into homelessness and unemployment in the first place.

“We were at the doorstep of this river of homelessness washing people downstream,” he says. “I wanted to walk upstream and see what was throwing people into the river — lack of education, economic inequality — and see what could be done.”

He left the church to start a local project almost out of thin air, working with young people a few at a time, in a high-risk neighborhood that had little self-esteem or sense of purpose.

Three years later, hope and purpose bloom. Teenagers from low-income families are learning to save money for college and trade school. They are earning scholarships, doing community work. They are researching the harsh economics of the neighborhood, teaching neighbors how to do tax returns and open checking accounts and avoid loan-sharks and other predatory financial schemes. They are learning to tell their stories in high school classrooms and corporate boardrooms.

The project is called Community IMPACT! Nashville, which is run by Hilley in the basement of Woodland Presbyterian Church in East Nashville.

It doesn’t look like a traditional social service delivery system. There’s hardly even a sign out front. Most of Hilley’s staff are high school students, teens who talk up the project’s mission to other youngsters and mobilize recruits.

“These kids are changing their behavior and changing their futures,” Hilley says.
“We work with young people in the belief that they grow up in a place, not a program.”

The approach is racking up successes. About 40 teenagers are now in college or trade school because of IMPACT! Nashville scholarships, worth about $1,000 each. Another 125 are taking prep classes to improve their chances on the ACT pre-college exam.

Another 30 teens are committed to starting personal savings accounts, which teaches them to budget money and make plans for college and career.

Youngsters put $40 a month into a bank account until they enter post-secondary education. Local banks are assisting them with a pivotal contribution of their own: They throw in $120 a month for each young person’s $40.

“We find partners to create a web of support for these youngsters and their future,” Hilley says.

One innovative partnership revolves around coffee. Anyone wishing to aid IMPACT!’s scholarship program can buy fresh-roasted coffee through local coffee house Bongo Java. Order online at ineedmorecoffee.com — proceeds from the online orders go to IMPACT! scholarships.

Overall, IMPACT! Nashville depends on a dozen or so grants from corporate and foundation sources, as well as donations from local citizens and banks, to pursue its mission. That budget now is $388,000.

What helps attract the grant money is IMPACT!’s national standing. It is affiliated with IMPACT! USA, which was started in Washington, D.C. in 1990.
When organizers eventually called Hilley inviting him to start a project in Nashville, he was given the freedom to experiment and create a program that fit Music City’s needs and context.

“I’m still in a ministry,” says Hilley, who is married to Presbyterian minister Janet Hilley. He was ordained in 1988 and was minister at Downtown Presbyterian for six years.

“A lot of people go into ministry because they like to hear the sound of their own voice. Where I had to reorient myself was I had to shut up and start listening to young people talk. ... So often youth are seen as part of the problem, but if you can direct them and connect them with opportunity, and encourage leadership skills, they find reason to contribute to their community.”

One young staffer, Anderson Williams, grew up in the neighborhood, left to go to college and graduate school and now has returned to join the IMPACT! vision. He’s seeing a transformation of attitudes about the neighborhood within the neighborhood, he says.

“Having grown up here, I can see a shifting expectation taking place, a shift from hanging out in the streets to taking interest in the community.
It’s a total and positive shift of belief in what young people are capable of. They’re exposing a void, and they’re filling it.”

For more information about Community IMPACT! Nashville call 226-5899 or see its web site at ImpactNashville.org. Nationally the movement’s online address is: ForumForYouthInvestment.org

(Ray Waddle, formerly religion editor at The Tennessean, is a writer in Nashville.)