No one can describe the mission of Impacting Tomorrow better, and more enthusiastically, than Ken Tracy, who co-founded the nonprofit with his wife, Libby.
“We asked ourselves, what are key necessities that every individual, and especially every child, needs to thrive?” That list consisted of the obvious and the not-so-obvious: food, clothing, medical and dental care, pediatric occupational therapy, and a service called “Carry Her” that provides women and mothers with essentials such as diapers and feminine hygiene products. The campus includes a community room for local nonprofits to deliver additional services on-site, meeting guests where they already are with workforce development, financial literacy, and skill-building programs.
There are also intangibles given to every individual who walks through the doors. Most important of which are respect and dignity, which Ken believes has to be foundational to every interaction with another person, and why people who come to Impacting Tomorrow are referred to as guests, not clients or patients.
When Ken and Libby left their corporate lives behind to focus on creating Impacting Tomorrow, Ken was continuing a family legacy. “When I was growing up, my family was very involved with a lot of service-oriented projects,” he says. One vivid memory involves 16-year-old Ken driving his grandfather, dressed as Santa Claus, to hand out presents to several northeast Ohio orphanages. “I was the guy who carried in all of those toys. I loved it.”
Fast forward to the early 2000s, when Ken and Libby founded TaleMed, a medical staffing company, where they eventually created an internal program called Impacting Tomorrow and paid every employee for 40 hours of community service. Over time, they saw the potential for the concept to be much bigger, formally launching Impacting Tomorrow as a standalone nonprofit in 2023.
“I visited nonprofits all over the country and saw various models that supplied the services and help we now offer, but many of them only focused on one thing, such as a food pantry or clothing outlet,” Ken explains. That meant individuals had to visit multiple places to receive the services or products they needed, which was often another obstacle to overcome since transportation could be a significant issue for many seeking assistance.
To solve that problem, the Tracys shaped their mission around a holistic approach, a one-stop shop where an individual or family could access all of these services at once.
To realize that goal, Impacting Tomorrow moved last July into a 45,000-square-foot former factory, following a year-long renovation of the space on Wards Corner near I-275.
It’s a state-of-the-art facility in every sense, from the technology that supports all aspects of its operations to its amenities, services, and design.
Impacting Tomorrow has grown from serving 20,000 people that first year to more than 125,000 individuals last year. To pull that off, it takes more than 400 volunteers, 8 full-time staff, as well as medical and dental teams managed by HealthSource of Ohio. Ken and Libby, along with CFO, Dave Buffenbarger, receive no salary as part of their commitment to the mission.
It’s a little after noon on a Thursday in the large warehouse at the back of the building. With the boombox soundtrack of old-fashioned rock and roll, warehouse staff and Operations and Volunteer Services Manager, Beth Rogers, are accepting and sorting deliveries of food, clothing, and other items. Semitrailers filled with donations from generous corporate donors and supporters will pull up to one of several docks throughout the day.
On the other side of the wall, volunteers and staff are cleaning and restocking the large market for guests who will return to shop on Friday.
Nowhere is the uniqueness of Impacting Tomorrow on display more than in this large food market, with its aisles of shelves, banks of freezers and coolers, all holding items you’d expect to find at any grocery chain.
“Our ability to restock items, thanks to our corporate partners or what we buy ourselves, means we never run out of items such as bread, milk, eggs, or fresh produce,” Ken adds.
More important, there are no qualifications to shop, and everything is free to anyone who fills out an application. “It’s set up like a Costco — once you do the application, you get a membership card for a free ‘choice’ shopping experience,” Ken says.
When guests are finished shopping, they take their carts to one of several checkout counters where items are scanned and bagged. A volunteer ambassador then loads the groceries for each guest.
To streamline the ease of receiving multiple services during one visit, a staffer can assist in scheduling therapy or dental or medical appointments in conjunction with shopping trips to the market or clothing boutique.
Areas are connected for ease of getting around. With the market and family clothing boutique, which also houses the Carry Her program, located toward the back of the building, a large space in the middle houses pediatric occupational services where therapists help children with behavioral, speech, or other issues they may be struggling with.
The front features medical and dental areas, with a full-time nurse practitioner, five examining rooms, and a dental office with six chairs. Notably, if these services aren’t covered by a guest’s Medicare or Medicaid insurance, Impacting Tomorrow provides scholarships to cover the cost.
“Our guests who have jobs are working hard, but because both cost of living and food prices keep going up, they often have to choose among rent or food or the dentist,” Ken explains.
“There’s no judgment here,” Ken says, adamantly. “At some point in our lives, we’re all two or three steps from being in the same situation.”
Luckily for everyone in our area, Impacting Tomorrow is there to fill the void, in every way possible.
ImpactingTomorrow.com | 455 Wards Corner Rd, Loveland | 513.826.0399