Joe’s Kids had a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday with the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce and donors for the new location of Joe’s Kids at 1692 W. Lake St., Warsaw.

Text and Photos
By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — Over 10 years ago, Joe’s Kids opened on Commerce Drive in a space that was maybe around 2,000 square feet.

Thursday, March 14, after being on Provident Drive for a few years, Joe’s Kids had a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce for their new location at 1692 W. Lake St., Warsaw, which is 18,600 square feet on 10 acres of land.

An open house is Sunday, March 17 from 3-5 p.m.

Rebecca Bazzoni, Joe’s Kids executive director, explained, “We’ve grown to seeing about 600 children per year. We’ve started a tutoring program. We were operating in 4,300 square feet of space over there (on Provident Drive). We started borrowing space from Warsaw Community Church.”

The speech therapy and tutoring teams worked out of the space at WCC. Joe’s Kids didn’t have more capacity to grow at their Provident Drive building, so acquiring the building on Lake Street brought everyone together under one roof and will allow Joe’s Kids to grow for years to come “and say yes to new needs for our kids.”

To a degree, Bazzoni is surprised at how much Joe’s Kids has grown over the last decade.

“I never envisioned this. This felt impossible back then, but I knew the need was there, and so the need doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “The support from our community has been tremendous and allowed us to do this, and we’ve grown. Six hundred children per year. About 70% are Kosciusko County, and 30% are coming from other counties because not every community has a Joe’s Kids. It’s unique for a community our size.”

A wall inside Joe’s Kids’ new location at 1692 W. Lake St., Warsaw, thanks the building sponsors.

Off hand, Bazzoni said the children are coming from Marshall, Elkhart, Wabash, Whitley, Noble, Allen, St. Joe, Huntington counties and more.

“It’s regional, and the need for this type of service is statewide. We’ve started teaming up with another group of pediatric therapy clinics from the Carmel area, from New Castle, and they’re all experiencing the same type of thing – extremely long waiting lists for care and an inability to completely address the need,” she said.

As for the services Joe’s Kids offers, Bazzoni said they offer physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and now dyslexia therapy and tutoring services.

Potentially, they could add more services down the road.

“This was a big triumph to even get into a space where we can grow what we have and meet that need. So, this is sort of a step one for us, but part of the appeal of this property is the 10 acres of land that it sits on. We know that it can give us the opportunity to say yes to other needs in the future. We took the first step in doing that when we added our dyslexia therapy and tutoring services. We know that there are other needs for the families that we serve,” she said.

The K21 Health Foundation recently awarded $750,000 in grant funding to Joe’s Kids to lead the way in support of the purchase, renovation and expansion for the new Joe’s Kids location.

“The K21 Health Foundation, they really led the way in this first phase of building out this property for us, kind of a lead donor, and we also had the AWS Foundation, The Dekko Foundation, Kosciusko County government through ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funding, all pouring into this project, which really made us able to get in here in a short time. We were only looking at this property one year ago. This is abnormal speed for a nonprofit to do what we’ve done, but it’s because they saw the need, they said it’s not OK to have 250 children waiting for care with no end in sight on the waiting list,” Bazzoni said.

She said the donors made the new location possible and now Joe’s Kids is going to just continue to grow and look at other needs for the children.

Rich Haddad, K21 president and CEO, said, “Joe’s Kids really strikes at the heart of the mission of K21 Health Foundation, which is to provide health services for people that either have unique needs or aren’t getting services in other ways. And Joe’s Kids, for over 10 years, has provided really important therapies to children and their families right here in Kosciusko County. Families would have had to drive an hour-plus to get this sort of care in the past, and so K21 is thrilled that we’ve been a partner with them since they started.”

He said to have Joe’s Kids move into a location that allows them to expand their services and take kids off the waiting list, “you just can’t ask for a better project that we can be a part of. We’re thrilled for them. We’re happy that we can implement our mission with Joe’s Kids, and so we’re excited for their future.”

Joe’s Kids is doing such amazing work, Haddad said, that families from other counties surrounding Kosciusko are coming to use the services that Joe’s Kids provide, which is “just a bonus, that’s even better that they’re able to grow enough to serve families to our whole region. It’s real exciting.”

Joe’s Kids Executive Director Rebecca Bazzoni explains the calming room to guests after the ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday for the new location of Joe’s Kids at 1692 W. Lake St., Warsaw.

Patti Hays, CEO of AWS Foundation, said Joe’s Kids was one of AWS’s early grantees “because that need for physical therapy and OT supports has been a part of our kids’ population for a long time.” She said she believed this was the third location AWS has helped fund for Joe’s Kids since its first one. AWS Foundation is a relatively new foundation, having its start in 2007.

“So the need just continued to expand and grow, and to have a facility that meets the needs of all of the kids that are out there — a lot of kids with disabilities are on Medicaid, not always a preferred provider, and the demands are great. Earlier intervention really make significant differences, so the need and then this community’s response to the need to build something like this is just phenomenal. We’re proud to be a part of it,” Hays said.

Commissioner Cary Groninger sits on the county’s ARPA committee and voted to provide Joe’s Kids with ARPA funds for their parking lights.

“Being one of the members on the ARPA Committee, we just thought it was important. We’ve seen this as an opportunity for us to help Joe’s Kids. And it’s something that there’s no other organization like it really in a pretty large area,” he said. “… It really fit the criteria we were looking for with our ARPA funds and just glad to be a part of it and see it all come together and see some of the other sponsors are coming on board. … It’s good to see this project come to fruition.”

From an operations standpoint, Bazzoni said Joe’s Kids gets about 60% of what they need through insurance reimbursements, Medicaid and commercial insurances. Joe’s Kids has to raise about 40% of what they need through grant writing, fundraising events and donations.

“What we’re asked most often is, ‘who is Joe?’ Joe is an acronym for Join Our Effort because we can’t do this alone. We’ve gotten here today because we have a community that cares. We need that and we’re going to continue to need that,” she stated.

To learn more about how you can help Joe’s Kids, visit the website.