A donation to NEO means supporting high school and adult students in their educational journeys, an impact that stretches into every community in Northwest Indiana.
More than 70,000 adults in Northwest Indiana are without a high school diploma. Each of these individuals can cost a community more than $500,000 over a lifetime in public assistance, health care, and incarceration costs. However, an adult with a high school diploma can earn an additional $200,000 in their lifetime and receive a fraction, or perhaps none, of that assistance.
Beyond an economic impact, students who earn a high school diploma acquire the skills they need for career and post-secondary success, which means a higher quality of life for our neighbors.
Donate to NEO - Invest In Neighbors's Education
NEO Friends and Supporters,
This year, NEO is celebrating its 10th year of building educational equity in NWI. Our students’ individual stories of transformation and empowerment are matched only by knowing that their triumphs have a ripple effect on the lives of their own children and on their communities.
This milestone is time to celebrate the support you have shown to NEO’s mission in countless ways – support that has enabled us to meet the many challenges we have faced over the past ten years.
As we begin a new year, I am asking for your support once again to meet a new challenge that we are facing.
NEO is preparing to have onsite childcare at the NEO Center by this summer. This will be a real game changer for so many students who want to return to school but cannot access affordable, quality childcare. While we have fully renovated MOST of the 70,000 square feet of our converted bowling alley, we need to spend up to $75,000 to make this happen.
We thought we were all set to do this when we learned this fall that the Indiana Legislature had changed funding rules for adult students attending public schools. These students (over the age of 22) make up about 15% of NEO’s New Vistas High School student body and have been funded since we opened – they were a key reason for the school’s existence.
While the loss of $200,000 in expected revenue certainly took the wind out of our sails, we are doing what we have always done when we face a setback – we are rolling up our sleeves and figuring out a solution to ensure that the doors to a new childcare program open as planned.
With your help, we will do just that.
With some funding commitments already in place, our goal is to raise $50,000 by April 2022.Your donation can be a key part of achieving this goal and ensuring that we can offer our students and the community an affordable, high quality childcare program so parents can get back to school or work.Please contact me personally if you would like to come to NEO for a Mission Tour or if you would like for me to come to you to discuss giving opportunities.
I know that we can do this. Together.
With appreciation and gratitude,
Rebecca ReinerExecutive Director, NEO
