Below are the three organizations that have applied to receive funds for next year's event. Please vote to select which organization you'd like to benefit from the funds raised.
Our finalists were asked to tell us what the funds would be used for, and how they would assist us with the event and procuring support. Here are the responses:
Eastern Iowa Health Center:
Eastern Iowa Health Center will use proceeds from the golf tournament towards the expansion of our Pediatric Clinic in 2026, which will double our space from 2,500 to 5,000 square feet. This growth will allow us to expand from seven (7) rooms to fourteen (14), from two (2) providers to four (4), and from four (4) to eight (8) support staff. EIHC is currently on track for 9,200 pediatric encounters in the current fiscal year. Based on how busy our current providers are, we are confident that the community need for our Pediatric services will continue to increase. Over 70% of EIHC's patients are at or below the federal poverty level. Pediatrics are a needed service at EIHC, especially considering that we provide additional wrap around services such as food boxes from HACAP, coordination between our other clinics (including Dental), social work, and enrollment coordinators to empower even our youngest clients to be their healthiest selves.
EIHC will recruit volunteers from our board, as well as our administrative staff, to help on the day of the event and leading up to it. Our Operations staff will help as needed. We will secure a minimum of a foursome and can assist in securing prizes and/or hole sponsorships.
For FY2026, EIHC is on track to provide 73,000 patient/provider visits across our seven (7) services lines of Family Medicine, Pediatrics, Women's Health (including OB-GYN), Behavioral Health (including tele-psychiatry and MAT services), Dental, Pharmacy and a Walk-In Clinic. In 2026, we are adding Optometry to our service lines.
The Arc of East Central Iowa:
The Arc of East Central Iowa serves nearly 600 participants and their families who face life with a disability through a dozen different programs and services that span all stages of life. Two of our programs are reimbursed through Medicaid Waiver funds but reimbursement rates are far below the cost of providing the services. While they are a loss-leader for us, we are committed to providing these services because of the profound impact they have on our participants as well as for those who care for and love them. Those two programs are group respite / in-home respite and daycare (after-school, summer, adult extended-daycare). The Arc relies on the generosity of our community to help us fully fund these programs. We are the only special needs daycare in our region and we feel it is vital that this resource continues. If The Arc is selected as the recipient of the Rotary golf tournament, 100% of funds raised will go to bridge funding gaps in our daycare programs. Last summer, we served 90 participants in our summer programming but we still have 45 families on our waiting list just for summer and after-school care. Additional funds allow us to provide more people with access to this critical care.
We would promote this event through our social media outlets, in emails and in printed material that reaches over 3,000 people, We would also task our board members with promoting this event through their places of work and within their social communities. Day of event, we would bring participants out to greet, assist and support the event. In the first year of the event, we had an Arc family work the putting contest and we are certain they would be back for that. We would reach out for more support day-of from our families.
United Way of East Central Iowa:
The Lived Experience Advisory Committee brings together individuals who have personally experienced homelessness to guide and improve community solutions. While local providers have strong programs in place, a critical gap remains: the insights of those who have navigated housing instability themselves. This initiative ensures those voices inform, shape, and evaluate our strategies.
Over the past year, committee members have influenced policy, program design, and engagement efforts by sharing firsthand perspectives. Continued funding will ensure fair compensation for participants and support the outreach necessary to sustain this essential voice in our homelessness response system.
In the coming year, the Committee will focus on:
Program Assessment & Focus Groups: Receive training, engage with service providers, and lead focus groups to identify needed policy and program improvements.
Program Education & Implementation: Partner with providers to implement recommendations through training, technical assistance, and alignment with system performance measures.
Street Outreach: Continue an outreach model shaped by committee insights, emphasizing trust-building, holistic support, and low-barrier engagement.
Committee members will be compensated for outreach and engagement activities, including community panels, peer focus groups, encampment engagement, and information-gathering efforts.
By serving as a neutral advisory body rather than being housed within a single agency, the Committee promotes transparency, equitable information-sharing, and stronger collaboration across the system. Its work will help providers adopt best practices and build a more responsive, effective, and compassionate homelessness response—grounded in the expertise of those who know it best.
While the funding request focuses on supporting the Lived Experience Advisory Committee, this event also provides an important opportunity to educate the community about the broader Homeless Systems work. We aim to reduce stigma and raise awareness by helping people understand that homelessness affects our own neighbors, friends, and former classmates, that no single organization can solve it alone. Homelessness is a complex issue requiring coordination, strategy, and shared responsibility across providers, funders, government, companies, and our community. Involving all these entities (United Way of East Central Iowa, Housing Fund for Linn County, Willis Dady, HACAP, Waypoint and other contributors) casts a wide net of multiple organizations that can be tapped into to support the event through volunteers on the day of the event as well as utilizing our vast network to help secure teams, prizes or hole sponsorships.
United Way of East Central Iowa is applying for this grant on behalf of the Homeless Systems work and would work with Cedar Rapids Downtown Rotary to coordinate with all entities involved.
