Editor's note: This story is part of Southwest Michigan Second Wave's On the Ground Battle Creek series.
 
BATTLE CREEK, MI —Removing barriers for residents of Battle Creek who are addressing specific needs in the community is the focus of a program offered through the Battle Creek Community Foundation.
 
Known as Encourage BC, the initiative offers resources that take care of the back-end operations for more than 60 community projects led by small groups and individuals, says Angela Myers, Senior Risk Management Officer for BCCF and the Administrator for Encourage BC. In this latter role, she focuses on the less visible, but important work such as finances and the legal side of these community projects.
 
“I’m making sure they stay in compliance with the IRS (Internal Revenue Service). If they want to have a fundraiser, I make sure they’re following policies and procedures,” she says.
 
This work began at the Foundation in 1991. Encourage BC was created in 2017 when BCCF Leadership decided to create a separate entity to house it after a risk assessment was done.
 
The entity evolved as residents came to BCCF with ideas they had for specific projects that would make a positive impact on the community. These projects include the Calhoun County Trailways Alliance, Girls on the Run, Color the Creek, the Latin American Heritage Initiative, and six food pantries.
 
Myers says, those involved in these projects, all volunteer-driven, were allowed to partner with Encourage BC to provide back-office resources that they couldn’t manage. They are charged a nominal fee for this work.
 
“This makes it a little safer to do this work so they can focus on their mission and we can make sure everything is covered in terms of liability. Things are very streamlined through our organization so that it’s easy to tap into resources versus creating an infrastructure on their own,” she says. “It aligns with our mission and helps to build endowments through us in the community.”

Rose Fund thriving with Encourage support
 
Janice Masters, founder of the Rose Fund, says being under the BCCF umbrella saves her group time and money which frees up her and the fund’s other leaders to focus on their mission to provide new shoes, boots, coats, and prescription eyeglasses and other necessary needs to elementary and middle schools students in the Battle Creek Public Schools and Lakeview School District and any schools connected with Doris Klaussen Developmental Center. 
 
“This gives us credibility with donors. It also saves us time and money because (BCCF) oversees our funds,” she says.
 
During a 20-year career as an elementary school educator with Comstock Public Schools, Masters saw plenty of needs among students. After retiring in 2008, she founded Masters’ Counseling and Life Coaching in 2014 Battle Creek, her hometown. In 2010 she established the Rose Fund, named in honor of her mother, Rosamund Greene, who passed away that same year.
 
The Rose Fund was established in honor of Rosamund Greene, who passed away in 2010.She credits her mother with giving her and her sister important lessons in giving.
 
“My mom raised my sister and I by herself. She could stretch whatever little bit she had to help somebody,” Masters says. “When I named the Fund she was still alive. I told her I was naming it after her and she had this beautiful smile on her face.”
 
The Rose Fund took root while the sisters were caring for their mother. After speaking with BCCF leadership, the project found a home within Encourage BC.
 
A designated contact at each school is in contact with Masters and her four co-leaders to let them know what needs students have. They purchase the items and deliver them to the respective schools.
 
“The school staffs know who has a real need. We buy a lot of eyeglasses and have also paid dental bills and covered the cost of medications,” Masters says.
 
This year, the Fund leaders decided to broaden their reach to middle schools. Informally, they also work with other school districts and high schools.
 
An auction to raise funds for the Rose FundThe Rose Fund is seeded through donations from individuals and grants, in addition to a two-day sale of donated items every summer at Masters home. Her family also hosts an annual dinner potluck and auction at a local that raised more than $2,000 last year.
 
Among their more innovative fundraisers are tours they plan with a tour company. Anyone can go and those who participate donate $100 each to the Rose Fund on top of paying for the cost of the tour. In early April, Masters will be leading a trip to Myrtle Beach, S.C., followed in October with a trip to Maine.
 
Between each of these revenue-generating efforts, Masters says the Fund continues to replenish its coffers.
 
“We’re raising money to give it away,” she says.
 
Focused on community
 
Myers says community-driven efforts like these are very much at the grassroots level.
 
“Some are standalone organizations and some are individuals who want to do great work in the community but don’t have the capacity to build out an organization around their work,” she says. “These folks are able to do these different projects, have relationships with their donors, and get educated about philanthropy through this work. We want to give them as much autonomy as possible.”

Connecting Communities Cancer Control Coalition
 
With less than 10 volunteers, the 5C, which stands for Connecting Communities Cancer Control Coalition, “There’s limited ability to be able to do the things we need to do. If we’re running this as a nonprofit business entity, we wouldn’t be able to focus on our primary tasks which are education, screening, and prevention. It just wouldn’t be possible,” says Dr. Randy Mudge, a Radiation Oncologist with Bronson Battle Creek and Co-chair of the 5C.
 
The group came under the Encourage BC umbrella in 2005 after its founding by Dr. Mahesh Karamchandani, a Battle Creek Colorectal Surgeon who has since retired. Until 2021 it was called the Calhoun County Cancer Control Coalition; it was renamed after it expanded its work into Kalamazoo County, according to the 5C website.
 
Archer, a therapy dog, inside Seymour the Colon.Screening, education, and prevention around lung, breast, colorectal and prostate cancers are the 5C’s focus. The money raised is used to host events for these types of cancer. Among the tools they use is an inflatable colon dubbed “Seymour” that enables people to walk through a colon and see what a polyp and cancer would look like.
 
Mudge says the group began after the healthcare community “noted that there was a significant lack of screening and prevention programs for our population. When compared to other counties in Michigan, Calhoun County was in the lower percentiles. We had higher rates of cancer diagnoses and cancer that has progressed to higher stages when patients come in.”
 
As an example, he says it’s not uncommon to see patients with lung cancer diagnosed at Stage 3 or 4 of the disease when they first seek care. This is especially true in Calhoun County where individuals continue to smoke and low-dose CT scans aren’t being used to the extent they could be.
 
“I think there’s an educational component when it comes to our population,” Mudge says. “There’s also access issues with primary care, so that’s two main factors. The third one is financial.”
 
In addition to working with Bronson, the 5C also works with Ascension Health (formerly Borgess). They also host fundraisers with some of the money raised going to serving underserved populations.
 
Myers says Encourage BC sees a lot of generosity from the community around certain projects. She says BCCF doesn’t talk about her program a lot because they want to promote the projects and the work they’re doing.
 
“Giving locally might be different than giving to a national organization where you may not see the immediate results,” Myers says. “One of the things with all of these projects is that they’re doing really important work in our community and we feel very lucky to be a small part of that.”