BUILDING AUTONOMY, INSPIRING GROWTH AND CREATING JOY (Spring 2026). The mission of the Hawthorne Community Center is to enhance the quality of life and empower the Hawthorne community by investing in multi-generational and holistic opportunities to build autonomy, inspire growth and create joy. A trusted community asset for 100 years, Hawthorne provides programs and services for early childhood, school age youth, adults and families living in the Near Westside and greater Indianapolis communities. Hawthorne believes that to address inter-generational poverty, it must integrate services into a comprehensive package focusing on the root causes of poverty and therefore implements the Center for Working Families (CWF) and two-generation (2Gen) models. Hawthorne’s focus is on long-term, relationship-based case management rather than transactional efforts.

The Center for Working Families is the foundation of Hawthorne’s adult services. The CWF operates on the principles of building relationships with clients considering their immediate hurdles and long-term goals, and then bundling core CWF services to meet each client’s needs. CWF participants meet with three staff on their journey: Income Supports Specialist; Employment Coach; Financial Coach. The Income Supports Specialist collaborates with participants to provide direct assistance or connect participants to mainstream resources for housing stability, food access, transportation, workforce development needs and legal assistance. These resources stabilize participants so they can focus on employment and financial outcomes. The Employment Coach collaborates with participants to build employability skills, receive employment counseling and services, and connect to good jobs, training or education. Finally, participants meet with a Financial Coach to develop a household budget, access banking tools, decrease debt and increase credit with the goal of increasing net income and worth for the household.

Hawthorne will serve over 400 households in a given year through its CWF program. Over the past three years, on average Hawthorne helped 168 clients access or retain employment in living wage jobs, over 120 households increase income and 62 households increase net worth. These numbers indicate real and sustained financial stability with the households that participate in our programs.

In the image, Hawthorne families work together to create vision boards that illustrate goals for their household.

Clowes Fund Field(s) of Interest: Workforce Development

Grantees