Conservatory Program
The arts should be accessible to everybody! That’s why Willow Creek Theatre offers both pay-as-you-go and pay-what-you-can options for our improv conservatory. (Approximately half of our conservatory students take advantage of these options!)

We hold a minimum of three 12-week conservatories each year, taught by our in-house improv professionals, supplemented by world-class guest improvisers and instructors from the legendary iO Theater in Chicago. Conservatory tuition is currently $450 for a 12-week session, held for three hours on Monday nights, and we encourage all community members to participate, regardless of their ability to pay. Our goal is to make improvisational theatre accessible to all; we never want the inability to pay to be a barrier to learning and growing with the arts. Your generous gift will help sustain the accessibility of the conservatory program and support its potential for growth. Thank you for your consideration.

Learn more about this organization at www.willowcreektheatre.org

iJAG: Unlocking the potential of Every Student, No Matter What
iJAG has remained unwavering in its pursuit of a future where students are fully prepared, motivated, and encouraged to reach their fullest potential. iJAG serves to ensure that the youth in Iowa are resilient and well-prepared, equipped with skills, purpose, and opportunities. Through collaborative partnerships and innovative methods, iJAG bridges the gap between education and employment, fostering strong communities and unlocking the potential of every student, regardless of their circumstances. From the very beginning, iJAG has been fully committed to its mission. The objective is not solely to impart academic knowledge but also to provide essential life skills, purpose, and opportunities crucial for personal and professional growth. This is achieved through our blended approach of Healing Centered Engagement, project-based learning, and a dedicated effort to offer high-quality work-based learning opportunities that can transform the lives of students.

Learn more about this organization at www.ijag.org

One Book Two Book Children's Literature Festival
One Book Two Book is an annual celebration of children's literature and literacy. This February festival invites children, parents, educators, and authors for a joyful weekend of books, writing, and fun. The festival, which began in 2012, seeks to leverage the assets of our community to promote reading and writing for children and their families in the Johnson County area.. The two-day festival kicks off with a variety of free, engaging activities, including interactive readings, a book fair, meet & greets with beloved book characters, and workshops in writing and illustration. The second day is dedicated to honoring local student writers with a special ceremony Students in Johnson and Linn counties are encouraged to write and submit a page of writing. This can be a story, a poem, an essay, a graphic story, song lyric or anything else the student can create on the page to convey an idea. Grade-level winners are selected by a team of volunteer writing evaluators from ACT.

Learn more about this organization at www.iowacityofliterature.org

Voucher Bikes at Bike Library
At the Bike Library, we believe that access to reliable transportation is a vital aspect of mobility justice and transportation equity. To support our community members who are most in need, we partner with the Shelter House and the Domestic Violence Intervention Program (DVIP) to provide bicycles to at-risk individuals. This program offers FREE bike, helmet and lock to those who require immediate, reliable transportation—often as a necessity for maintaining or finding employment, reaching essential services, or simply having the freedom to move safely and efficiently within our community. For individuals like Rachel, a survivor of domestic violence, a lack of reliable transportation can mean walking 45 minutes each way in the dark to reach a job. By providing a bike, we offer a critical resource that allows individuals to regain their independence and pursue their goals. $100 provides a bike, helmet and lock to one person. $2,000 serves 20 people. Thank you for your consideration.

Learn more about this organization at www.icbikelibrary.org

ChildServe- We partner with families to help children with special healthcare needs live a great life
ChildServe improves the health and well-being of 5,800 children each year through specialized clinical, home, and community-based programs and services. We are experts in pediatric rehabilitation and care for children and young adults who have a wide variety of developmental delays, disabilities, injuries, and other special healthcare needs.

We offer specialty services, uniquely equipped facilities, and state-of-the-art technology. Our mission is simple: We partner with families to help children with special healthcare needs live a great life. The children and young adults we serve inspire us to provide possibilities and improve quality of life in a caring environment.

Support will directly impact: Children & Families: Expanding capacity to serve more children. Programs & Facilities: Expanding clinical capacity to improve the health and well-being of children with complex health needs.

We invite you to come tour to learn more!

Learn more about this organization at www.childserve.org

Home Ties Kitchen Updates
Help us raise funds to purchase appliances for our kitchen at Home Ties! We are in the process of replacing the appliances in our kitchen with commercial grade appliances to withstand the high use of a center based program! Please support our endeavor! Home Ties Child Care Center, located in the First Mennonite Church, is licensed for 36 children. At Home Ties we believe that in the first five years social-emotional development forms the foundation on which all future learning is built. A strong component of our program is therefore supporting the development of a secure base from which children can move out and explore their world, and the development of basic social skills that will support their later successful transition to school. Our program also maintains low teacher-to student ratios to support the children we serve, knowing that many of them have adverse childhood experiences that can affect their mental health and overall social emotional learning.

Learn more about this organization at www.iowa4cs.com

Bedding Drive 2025
We are a group of volunteers who hand make items for the local NICUs which include University of Iowa Stead Children’s Hospital in Iowa City and Unity Point Health St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids. We also provide some items to Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines, depending on our supply. We provide hats, booties, and costumes, bed linens such as sheets and fleece pads, bereavement items, and anything else the nurses and families might need that we can provide. Although we are new, our mission is not. We are continuing what The Preemie Project started. The parents and nurses have very little control, so being able to choose something bright and cheerful or something to match their nursery at home really brings a smile to the parents’ faces. This request comes from our NICU nurses and the success of the program will be the completion of the beautiful supply of linens. Thank you for considering our nonprofit, At Home In The Crib!

Learn more about this organization at www.athomeinthecrib@gmail.com

Dresser Build and Household Furnishings Delivery
When you fund a dresser build and delivery project, 5 dressers are built from ready-to-assemble kits by a new group of 10 volunteers. They are then immediately delivered to local families by that same group, along with all other beds and furnishings included in our comforts of home delivery program. Currently, Houses into Homes needs to limit the dressers delivered per household to 1, no matter the family size. This is due to donation shortages. Your gift provides a direct furniture need and also inspires 10 new neighbors into a day of service.

Gifts of $500 make this day possible-5 full household deliveries with 10 new volunteers. We hope to fund

Houses into Homes provides gently-used beds, furniture, and household items for families and individuals in Johnson County who are exiting homelessness, domestic violence, and other crisis situations.

Learn more about this organization at www.housesintohomes.org

Through a structured and nuturing community, residents of the Iowa City Sober Living House are empowering women to develop essential life skills, find employment, establish connections and create a foundation for a brighter substance free future.
Iowa City Sober Living (ICSL) opened its doors in October 2023. It was a lifelong dream of the two founders, both of whom benefitted from a supportive community during their recovery and wanted to make that available to all women seeking sobriety. With few residential sober houses available, ICSL has supported 29 women navigating the complex challenges of early recovery—many facing financial insecurity, unemployment, strained relationships and housing instability. ICSL fosters a trauma-informed, strength-based environment where women regain independence. Our individualized programming is grounded in best practices of sober living and provides structure, and holistic support. Each woman’s recovery plan is tailored and established in collaboration with the house manager through one-on-one meetings, group support, and evidence-based tools that monitor progress and reinforce personal growth. To grow with the needs of our community, we are seeking financial support for the mortgage.

Learn more about this organization at iowacitysoberliving.com

Remote Peer Support
NAMIJC’s Remote Peer Support Program offers one-on-one emotional support for individuals over the phone, video call, or text. Our trained Peer Support Specialists live in recovery from mental illness themselves, and know what it’s like to experience these challenges. Through this free, low-barrier remote program, our staff work with any adult struggling with mental illness. These are scheduled weekly (or more frequent) calls set up so that our staff can build rapport with our clients and help them work on goals, coping strategies, and more. Remote Peer Support reaches individuals in need who are homebound, immunocompromised, experience agoraphobia, have transportation issues, or simply want mental health support from the comfort of their own home. Several of our clients have called this service “life saving,” and all of them attest that it helps them feel less alone and more supported.

Learn more about this organization at www.namijc.org

Fueling Futures: Healthy Meals for Growing Minds at Neighborhood Centers
Neighborhood Centers believes every child deserves access to healthy, nutritious meals—regardless of their family’s income. That’s why we go above and beyond what is funded, covering an annual $30,000 gap to ensure no child in our programs goes hungry.

This project supports our daily meal and snack program, which provides breakfast, lunch, and snack to 100 children in our full-day, year-round early childhood programs; nutritious snacks for 200 K–5th graders in five afterschool sites; and full meals and snacks for 120 children in our summer camp.

These meals are more than food—they’re fuel for learning, growth, and play. They help children focus in school, stay energized through the day, and build lifelong healthy habits. For many families facing food insecurity, these meals make all the difference.

Your gift helps feed 400+ children each year—nourishing both body and mind. Together, we can ensure every child has what they need to thrive.

Learn more about this organization at www.ncjc.org

Telling Our Story
Investing in Marketing is a must in order to compete in an overstimulated world. Non-profits are at a disadvantage competing for the attention of the consumer market, due to lack of marketing dollars. Non-profits are struggling to meet the rising demand, we MUST grab the attention of our community, tell our story and express our needs. Investing in growing the capacity of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Johnson County (BBBSJC) will allow us to serve more young people in need of, and who desire a mentor. Not only can marketing help us recruit desperately needed volunteers, but also help leverage the generosity of the community to support us in other ways, financially, partnership development and direct support to our youth and families. By leveraging marketing strategies, we can tap into powerful technologies to reach our target audience in engaging and impactful ways.

Learn more about this organization at www.bbbsjc.org

Operating Suppport
Cakes from the Heart is a non-profit organization that is currently serving Johnson and Linn counties that provides cakes or cupcakes to kids and seniors in our communities with financial barriers.

The way it works is an agency has the information about Cakes from the Heart available to clients, work with the client to complete the order form and then the agency would place the cake request to us. Once we get a cake request from the agency, it is then emailed out to our volunteer bakers and then the volunteer baker would bake, decorate and deliver the cake or cupcakes to the referring agency. We do ask for a 7-day lead-time to make all of this happen but will try to do all requests. We know this can create some more work for staff but we do hope the agencies will believe the birthday cakes or cupcakes are worth it.

Please keep in mind that we do not deliver to client homes, we deliver to the agency requesting the cake for a client and delivery time is between 8:00 am and 4:30.

Learn more about this organization at cakesfromtheheartiowa@gmail.com

Community Reentry Support From Incareration
Formerly incarcerated individuals are more than 10 times as likely to be homeless and 60% of released individuals are unemployed. These aren’t the only challenges these individuals face. The recidivism rate is currently at 34.3%. By providing reentry support before individuals are even released into the community, and continuing this support upon release, Inside Out directly impacts the lives of those in need with resources, counseling, social supports. Support Inside Out’s mission to provide comprehensive case management, employment readiness, housing assistance, mentoring, life skills including financial literacy, healthy relationships, and communication, referrals and support for mental health and substance use needs, peer-recovery group, social activities, and more. Inside Out Reentry Community is one of Iowa's only comprehensive reentry organizations. Our vision: people involved in the criminal legal system will achieve the greatest possible success with their community’s support.

Learn more about this organization at https://www.insideoutreentry.com

Open Coffee Fund
EntrePartners is building community around entrepreneurship. Our weekly Open Coffee event brings together people from all walks of life to share stories and gain connections, so that we all can build great things together. We're raising money not only to support our existing Wednesday morning event in downtown Iowa City but to expand throughout Johnson County. All funds will be used to purchase coffee for attendees and to pay any venue fees. More information about Open Coffee can be found on our Web site: https://www.entrepartners.org/opencoffee.html

Learn more about this organization at www.entrepartners.org