Purpose Prize

The Latest from CoGenerate

New Survey Reveals Benefits of Older-Younger Tutoring Teams

New Survey Reveals Benefits of Older-Younger Tutoring Teams

For the past year, Ampact, with support from CoGenerate’s Generations Serving Together program, placed cogenerational pairs of AmeriCorps members in elementary schools. The older and younger adults worked side by side to improve students’ reading and math skills. A...

The Billionaire Who Gave Away His Fortune Took a Big Chance on Us

The Billionaire Who Gave Away His Fortune Took a Big Chance on Us

We at CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org) are mourning the loss of Chuck Feeney this week. Without Chuck's vision and generosity we likely would not exist as an organization. Twenty-five years ago Atlantic Philanthropies took a chance on our start-up, playing a...

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Larry Hill

The Nehemiah Foundation of Springfield/Clark County
Purpose Prize Fellow 2006

Incubating and supporting ministries to meet community spiritual and physical needs

Over the last 14 years, the divorce rate for Clark County, Ohio has averaged 87%. In 2002, there was one more marriage license than divorce paper filed. When Larry Hill, local business owner and Board Chairman of the Nehemiah Foundation was approached by the local government to wage a “war on divorce,” the immediate and heartfelt response was yes. The “war on divorce” was embraced by the congregational community. Within a 4 month span, 83 churches had committed to the marriage policy. The media in the city embraced the idea as well, making front page news on the policy signing day, September 16, 2004. The Nehemiah Foundation’s recruiting arm, called the Equippers Network, kicked into action on this issue as well. Support services were provided to a group they helped form called the Marriage Resource Center. Mentor couples were recruited and training classes were held. How has the community been impacted over the last 18 months? According to court records, the divorce rate has been reduced by 20% to the lowest on record in the last 15 years. Over the last 6 months, the reduction has been 28%.