October 05, 2025, By Hannah Young:
Impact100 Genesee County donated $87,000 to one nonprofit during the organization’s Big Give event on Wednesday, Sept. 24 at the Sloan Museum of Discovery in Flint.
This year’s recipient is St. Francis Prayer Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing help with emergency food, diapers, utilities, beds and sponsoring Thanksgiving and Christmas Adopt-A-Family programs.
“We were proud to award St. Francis Prayer Center—a returning finalist— with $87,000 after the member vote,” said Katie Kool-Wray, Impact100 Genesee County founder. “While we can only select one Big Give winner, every nonprofit finalist is doing vital work in our community and we encourage our members and supporters to continue giving their time, talent and treasure to them.”
Impact100 Genesee County is a women’s 501(c)3 collective giving organization. Each member of Impact100 Genesee County is asked to donate $1,000 a year. The amount donated each year depends on the number of members.
Kool-Wray said the chapter has 92 members who each donated $1,000. This year the organization awarded a total of $92,000 in grants: $87,000 to St. Francis Prayer Center and $5,000 divided across the four other Finalists. The winner was determined by a vote of the nonprofit’s members.
“We are absolutely thrilled with the momentum Impact100 Genesee County has built in just two short years,” Kool-Wray said. “Reaching 92 members and awarding $92,000 in grants is a powerful reminder of what happens when women join our resources together to make a difference.”
Kool-Wray said that in two years, Impact100 Genesee County has granted $149,000 to local nonprofits.
“We’re already 34% of the way toward our 2026 goal of 100 members,” Kool-Wray said. “We invite and encourage anyone who is interested to please reach out to learn more.”
The organization is actively recruiting members for the 2026 grant and will be hosting its first event for the 2025-26 year on Wednesday, Oct. 22 from 5-7 p.m. at Damouni Orchard at 2391 W. Reid Road in Flint.
Those interested in the nonprofit can reach out at 513-780-7231 or by visiting the organization’s website at https:// impact100geneseecounty.org/.
Five finalists
ABC Youth
• Mission: ABC Youth’s mission is to serve the Flint community youth and families through skilled trades, culinary arts and life skills that will promote and celebrate lifelong learning for the success of youth and families.
• Project: ABC Youth’s Skilled Trades Training and Development Center equips underserved youth in Flint with hands-on experience in skilled trades, culinary arts, STEM education and life skills, while offering job shadowing opportunities with local contractors to prepare them for living-wage careers.
Crim Fitness Foundation
• Mission: The Crim Fitness Foundation cultivates accessible, vibrant communities in Flint and Genesee County that encourage people to lead healthy lifestyles by integrating physical activity, healthy eating and mindfulness into their daily lives and mentors other communities to do the same.
• Project: And Still I’m R.I.S.E. is a two-year pilot initiative that aims to empower youth and educators in Genesee County with mindfulness-based tools to promote social and emotional wellbeing and build peer-led support systems, addressing the urgent mental health challenges facing today’s youth.
Ireland’s Dream
• Mission: Ireland’s Dream is dedicated to ensuring children living with cerebral palsy have access to quality care enabling them to live their best life.
• Project: A baseball field for everyone to play on together, both physically and not physically handicapped.
St. Francis Prayer Center
• Mission: Secure in God’s love, the St. Francis Prayer Center (SFPC), Flint, exists to serve all people, especially our poor, our parishes and our diocese through the ministries of prayer, evangelization, healing, formation, direct services and social justice.
• Project: This project will continue to restore the dignity to more Flint marginalized who are sleeping on floors especially children by delivering more free beds/ bedding using delivery trucks which are protected in a safe steel pole barn with additional storage for mattresses, box springs, and frames.
Youth Arts: Unlocked
• Mission: Bringing the arts to justice involved youth and their work to the public.
• Project: Youth Arts: Unlocked will implement board-certified music, dance and/or drama therapy interventions.