Pictured: The Warren City Health District received funding for its Wellness On Wheels mobile clinic through the Warren Community Impact Fund.
WARREN, Ohio – A unique partnership between the City of Warren and the Community Foundation, combining the city’s federal funding through the American Rescue Plan Act with the Foundation’s expertise in grantmaking, has invested $600,000 into organizations supporting city residents.
“With the help of the Community Foundation, we were able to do a lot of neighborhood reinvestment. It’s been spread across Warren and really helped our partners have an impact in their community,” says Warren Mayor Doug Franklin. “It’s touched everything from roads, safety, quality of life and all of that. Those ARP funds have supported all parts of Warren.”
Established in November 2023, the Warren Community Impact Fund was created to help the city with disbursing $500,000 of the city’s funding, which was required to be allocated by the end of that year. After working through the initial rounds of funding with a group of community leaders including former CFMV President Shari Harrell, the city approached the Foundation about opening the fund and managing the process from start to finish.
That included the creation of a custom grant application, promotion of the fund, the creation of a review committee and ensuring successful grants were paid out. Also part of the process was the follow-up for a final report outlining the impact of the grants, which was delivered to city leaders in May 2025. The Community Foundation, also a public charity, received a small portion of the fund balance to cover the costs of this work.
In total, the CFMV awarded funds to 20 organizations through the Warren Community Impact Fund.
“The Community Foundation offered a lot of value to the whole process. They do this work all the time and are uniquely positioned to understand the process of disbursing funds,” says Franklin, noting that a foundational part of the effort was the inclusion of community decision-making. “As we went through the process to allocate funds, bringing that committee together really emphasized the community-based approach. That’s always the goal of my administration: we want to make sure we’re capturing the skillsets people in our community have. We have so much talent here; it’d be almost malfeasance for us to not take advantage of that.”
After the Warren Community Impact Fund was opened, Sixth Ward Councilwoman Honeya Price set about opening a similar fund to distribute ARPA funds in her district, which covers the southwestern part of the city. Having a committee created to make funding decisions was just as important to Price.
“In my opinion, gathering input from more people can provide diverse perspectives,” she says. “The Community Foundation played a crucial role in leading this effort, providing essential support and resources that made this initiative a reality in our community.”
The City of Warren Sixth Ward Neighborhood Impact Fund awarded a total of $100,000 to 18 projects since it was established in March 2024, ranging from community cleanup efforts to support for youth sports to the addition of a pavilion at Jefferson PK-8 School.
“This fund has supported those in the Sixth Ward who may have struggled to secure funding from other sources,” Price says. “At Second Baptist Church, where they put in a veterans memorial. It created a beautiful public space and was a grassroots effort. At Jefferson School K-8, a pavilion will be built for the students, creating a new space for activities and gatherings. All the projects sent a message to the community that we’re all here to support each other.”
What made these two funds exciting for the Community Foundation to take part in, says President Casey Krell, was the involvement of community members: leaders from the nonprofit, education and business sectors. That kind of community-led decision process is a cornerstone of the Foundation’s work to have the people closest to issues leading conversations about how to address them.
“As the Community Foundation has grown in recent years, we’ve always been on the lookout for innovative ways to support improvements to the Valley. We’re honored that Mayor Franklin, Councilwoman Price and the Warren City Council wanted to use our institutional knowledge to help invest these once-in-a-lifetime funds in a way that’d be impactful for all residents,” Krell says. “The CFMV team could not have done this work alone; we are also grateful for the community members who shared their experiences and insights to help decide how these funds would be spent. Through the entire process, we saw how community-led decision-making can make a place stronger than the sum of its parts.”
A full list of grants awarded through the Warren Community Impact Fund and the City of Warren Sixth Ward Neighborhood Impact Fund are available below.
Warren Community Impact Fund
- ACTION – $21,000 for operating support
- Economic Action Group – $20,000 for a commercial market analysis of the Market Street corridor
- Family and Community Services – $25,000 for services to support victims of domestic violence
- Inspiring Minds – $75,000 for its health and wellness programs
- Mind, Body and Soul Asset Development Center – $10,000 for the MiBoSo Wellness Community Trauma Resilience Project
- MyPath – $25,000 to support expanding its Youngstown Works program into Mahoning Valley Works
- North Mar Church – $19,385 for partnership programs, including programs at Willard PK-8 School
- Northeast Ohio Adoption Services –$10,000 for recruitment efforts
- Oak Hill Collaborative – $15,000 for the Warren-Trumbull Digital Advantage Neighborhood Learning
- The Salvation Army – $20,000 for rent assistance
- Sight for All – $25,000 for eye exams and glasses for Warren residents
- Sleep in Heavenly Peace-Trumbull County – $15,000 to help make beds for children
- Society of St. Vincent de Paul Northeast Ohio – $40,000 for programs, including daily meal services and emergency housing voucher assistance
- Ryan Giambattista Helms Foundation – $50,000 for art therapy programs
- Tri County Jobs for Ohio’s Graduates – $25,000 for academic intervention and career programming for youth involved in the justice system
- Trinity Baptist Church – $20,000 for the Bridge The Gap Summer Academy
- Trumbull Community Action Program – $15,000 for the Arts and Athletics Alternatives youth program
- Warren City Health District – $35,000 for the Warren Wellness on Wheels program
- Warren Forward – $16,750 for the City Leaders program
- Warren Grown – $2,000 for the From Sapling to Sovereign youth program
Sixth Ward Neighborhood Impact Fund
- Community Church of God in Christ – $5,000 for building upgrades
- Community Connection – $5,000 for youth education programs
- Free in Deed Prison Ministry – $4,646 for its youth farming program
- Grace AME Church of Warren – $5,000 for the Trumbull County Try Fitness program
- Love Your Community – $5,000 for youth athletics and mentorship programs
- New Freedom Missionary Baptist Church – $5,000 for the installation of a wheelchair lift
- Paradise Gardens Development – $5,000 for expanding and maintaining its urban garden
- Parker Farm – $2,500 for a sensory garden
- Second Baptist Church – $5,000 each for its food pantry and the creation of a veteran’s memorial
- St. John’s Ministries Church of God in Christ – $5,000 for improvements to its community center
- Sunshine of Warren/Trumbull – $5,000 for its home repair pilot program
- Victory Garden – $10,950 for its urban gardening program
- Warren Little Raiders – $5,000 for its youth sports programs
- Warren City Health District – $5,000 for projects addressing food insecurity and $15,000 for community cleanup efforts
- Warren City Schools – $4,000 for the installation of a pavilion at Jefferson PK-8 School