Non-profits

San Antonio Food Bank – Phase II

January 28, 2020 by

Founded in 1980, the San Antonio Food Bank (“SAFB”) is a non-profit organization that serves as a clearinghouse, receiving and storing donated food, fresh produce, and other groceries. SAFB distributes these items in manageable quantities to over 500 independent partner agencies that help people in need. However, SAFB’s activities are not limited to distributing food to street-level food kitchens; SAFB also operates programs to help people escape the poverty that results in chronic hunger and encourages better nutrition throughout the region via additional services.

Texas is ranked 2nd in the country in household incidences of food insecurity – unreliable access to sufficient, affordable, nutritious food – with 1 in 6 Texans living in food insecure households. The need in San Antonio is even more dire: one in five adults, and one in four children reported struggling with food insecurity in the past year. Seniors are equally at risk, and often have to choose between adequate nutritious food and vital medical services.

SAFB has grown its reach to include 16 counties, feeding 58,000 people a week. Of the 58,000 clients served weekly, 35% are children, 25% routinely have to choose between food and medical services, 46% work and still face food insecurity, and 67% have incomes below the federal poverty level.

The new 50,000 sf facility will house a production kitchen, an expanded area for culinary training, a vegetable prep plant, and a seasonal venison processing plant.

Beyond the physical characteristics of the new facility, it will support four key SAFB efforts, the Culinary Training Program, the Production Kitchen, a “Grab-and-Go” salad prep plant, and SAFB’s “Hunters for the Hungry” program. The SAFB has run a hugely successful culinary training program for more than a decade that targets the homeless, disabled, and long-term unemployed with the training. This new facility would offer new classroom and teaching space. The greater San Antonio region has hundreds of unfilled positions today in the hospitality industry, and this expansion would allow SAFB to double the number of participants per class (from 8-10 per class to 16-20 per class). Classes run in 18 week blocks and will soon be offered with a guaranteed job and stipend.

The new facility would be home to a state-of-the-art production kitchen capable of putting out more than 10,000 meals a day. One of SAFB’s primary goals is to meet the near-constant demand for meals for children and seniors but the kitchen in the existing facility limits SAFB’s ability to meet that demand. The new kitchen will operate 2-3 shifts per day and as many as 7 days a week. The addition of this kitchen would allow the current kitchen on the Westside campus to become home to Catalyst Catering, SAFB’s social enterprise, which is now using a kitchen offsite.

This development plan also includes a new “Grab-and-Go” salad prep plant where SAFB would wash, store, prep/chop, and assemble healthy salads (with as much of the produce as possible coming from its own farms) for distribution via its social enterprise efforts and mission programs. The organization is the leader in southwest Texas in promoting healthy eating, and the addition of a salad prep plant would afford a wider variety of healthy food options to those facing hunger. SAFB envisions the salads offered on a Grab-and-Go model, creating a new source of revenue to support its catering and Mobile Mercado social enterprise programs.

Lastly, the new 50,000 building will expand SAFB’s existing “Hunters for the Hungry” program that allows individual hunters and ranch owners to donate harvested deer to be processed for free, with the venison going to the SAFB as an additional source of high-quality protein for its meals. South Texas has the largest deer population in the United States and existing local processors participating in similar programs that use harvested deer to feed the hungry simply cannot handle the volume. So SAFB plans on addressing this opportunity by building out its own (seasonal) processing plant to meet the need.

The SAFB may also expand this processing plant to allow for the processing of feral hogs, which cost Texas neighborhoods, farms and ranches hundreds of millions of dollars in damage each year. The State of Texas allows for hogs to be trapped live and taken to a USDA inspected facility for harvesting. This new processing plant would help address both the State’s ballooning feral hog population and its pervasive food insecurity.

In January, 2020, Crescent Growth Capital assisted SAFB with the closing of a $19M NMTC financing, utilizing allocation provided by Texas Mezzanine Fund, McCormick Baron Salazar, and PeopleFund and an investment from US Bank.

This project will create 9 direct FTE positions, as well as an estimated 40 construction jobs. Furthermore, the culinary training program will soon be able to offer its graduates with a guaranteed job as well as a stipend, so the ancillary job creation from this programming alone will be roughly 120 positions over the first three years.

Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep – Phase II

September 18, 2019 by

Founded in Chicago in 2001 by Father John P. Foley, S.J., the Cristo Rey network is the largest network of high schools in the US whose enrollment is limited to low-income youth. Cristo Rey employs an innovative business model, wherein students work five days each month in entry-level jobs at local professional companies, with the fee for their work being directed to underwrite tuition costs. Operating on a franchise system, each Cristo Rey school is a partnership between a local operator with an established track record, and the proven Cristo Rey 9-12 programming that is based on rigorous academics, four years of professional work experience, and Catholic moral values, employed in a high-expectations environment. Students’ tuition is subsidized by the same work study program that prepares them for college, as well as putting them in good position to succeed in their first job.

Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep (“CRDCP”), the 30th Cristo Rey school nationwide, welcomed its inaugural 126-member freshman class in September, 2015, operating out of the St. Augustine Drive site in Pleasant Grove, under a lease with the Catholic Diocese of Dallas. The current class is 94% Hispanic, 70% come from the failing DISD public school system, 70% report knowing no one either in their family or neighborhood who attended college, and the average 5-member family household income of the student body is around $35,000.

CRDCP employs the same Corporate Work Study Program found in all Cristo Rey schools. The program is an innovative model of education that gives students a Catholic, college-preparatory education while earning work experience in a corporate setting. Four students rotate through the week to fill the position full-time. Each student has an assigned day on which he or she works. On Friday, the four students rotate to share the fifth day of the week. In each four-week span, each student will have one week in which he or she works two days. Student schedules are created so that students never miss a class.

Students are employees of the Corporate Work Study Program, not the job sponsors. Sponsors pay a flat fee to the Corporate Work Study Program for one full-time Corporate Work Study Team. The Corporate Work Study Program handles all payroll, W-4, I-9, Worker’s Compensation, FICA and FUTA paperwork, as well as all routine employer issues. The Corporate Work Study Program is separately incorporated, functioning as an employment agency within Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep.

CRDCP’s Corporate Work Study program partners include a broad spectrum of Dallas’ biggest regional, national and international companies, operating in a variety of industries, such as commercial real estate, accounting, law, energy exploration/oilfield services, non-profits, and consumer products.

The project site is located within a USDA-designated Food Desert, and Cristo Rey Dallas provides students with meals through the National School Lunch Program and have school-wide physical recreation time on Friday mornings to encourage healthy habits.

With the main academic building completed as a result of the first NMTC closing in December, 2016, the administration has turned its focus to the rest of the campus – specifically the 32,000 sf Innovation Center, housing the dining hall and technology and resource centers, as well as an administrative building, Corporate Work Study Program headquarters, an arts and music center, a gymnasium, a sports field and parking.

In September, 2019, Crescent Growth Capital helped facilitate a $16,500,000 NMTC financing to fund the school’s Phase 2 campus development plan. By leveraging NMTC allocation provided by Dallas Development Fund, Raza Development Fund, and top off allocation as well as NMTC investment from Capital One, the financing could deliver up to $3M in net benefit to the school.

Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas – Phases I & II

July 23, 2019 by

Girl Scouts is proud to be celebrating 101 years of building girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place. As a national movement of more than 2.3 million girls, 890,000 adults and more than 59 million alumnae, Girl Scouts is a force for developing leadership skills in girls. Since its founding by Juliette Gordon Low, Girl Scouts has been an inclusive sisterhood of women and girls that represents every zip code across the country.

In the last 101 years, the world has changed dramatically. When Juliette founded the organization in 1912, women had very few personal rights. Today, girls face another set of challenges as they navigate their lives in an increasingly complex and uncertain world. The 21^st century requires a different kind of leader – one who not only values the power of diversity, inclusion, and collaboration, but also is committed to bringing people together to improve neighborhoods, communities, and the world.

Girl Scouts is today, as it always has been, the organization best positioned to offer girls the tools they need to be successful leaders now and throughout their lives. In fact, Girl Scouts is the largest pipeline for female leaders in the country:

Nearly 80% of female business owners were Girl Scouts.

A full 68% of women serving in Congress were Girl Scouts and every female Secretary of State was a Girl Scout.

Nearly every woman who has ever flown in space was a Girl Scout.

Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas (GSNETX) was formed as a result of realignment in 2007. In 2014, their council served nearly 31,000 girls in a 32-county area from DFW Airport, east to Louisiana and north to Oklahoma. In Dallas alone, more than 3,000 girls – 67% of which were Hispanic – participated in the Dallas Area Community Outreach Programs (Title 1 schools, low-income areas primarily in South Dallas, in DISD schools).

Camp Whispering Cedars, established in 1926, has welcomed nearly 100,000 Girl Scouts since inception. Encompassing approximately 60 acres, Camp Whispering Cedars is the largest urban camp serving girls in North Texas. The camp is located just 20 minutes south of downtown Dallas within the City of Dallas boundaries. Its access to a major urban population, with an estimated 40,000 girls living in low socio-economic conditions, makes this property ideally suited to reduce barriers to participation for a large number of girls and adults who have limited resources and transportation options.

The Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) Center at Camp Whispering Cedars is a pilot program for Girl Scouts USA and is expected to be the model for other urban camps nationally. Camp Whispering Cedars’ proximity to the metropolitan area of Dallas along with its rural seclusion from the urban or suburban environments makes it a unique camp that can offer a careful integration of pristine and protected natural environments and modern technology and its applications. This integration provides endless opportunities to elevate girl programming and experiences to new levels of creativity and innovation.

STEM programming has been at the center of the Girl Scout Leadership Experience since its inception. To further this mission, GSNETX’s vision for Camp Whispering Cedars is to create a STEM Center of Excellence where girls can explore science, technology, engineering and math, hands-on in the living laboratory of the outdoors. At Camp Whispering Cedars, girls will grow in confidence and make lifelong memories. Girls will come to have fun through traditional outdoor adventure and exploration while, at the same time, they will be offered programming that naturally integrates STEM into activities. Girls will take a deep dive into the natural world and tackle high-adventure challenges through project-based STEM activities. Thanks to a wide array of partnerships, Camp Whispering Cedars will offer girls a variety of programming, including:

Hunt Oil will identify unique geological features of the site and key areas to observe unique formations on the property, including the escarpment between the Eagle Ford Shale and the Austin Chalk, which runs directly through the site.

Texas Instruments will help incorporate STEM learning concepts into a Girl Scout badge-earning workshop, identifying key areas of STEM career exploration to address with the Scouts.

Texas Master Naturalists will identify environmental and conservation learning opportunities and help GSNETX to develop focused programming for the Scouts.

Fluor Corporation, AT&T and University of Texas at Dallas will all help develop specific STEM-based programming for both the regular summer curriculum and College Journey.

City of Dallas/State of Texas will help GSNETX to develop a water conservation and stream monitoring program, in which girls will learn about water and its impact on the environment.

Texas Trees Foundation and Dogwood Canyon will identify unique hardwood trees, flora and fauna and other unique natural features on the site, and will help develop hiking and nature trails that highlight these features.

Perot Museum will provide STEM-related programming at the museum, and will bring girls to Camp Whispering Cedars to explore the concepts in an outdoor environment.

Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas initiated a capital campaign last year during the 100th anniversary of the organization to help support the Whispering Cedars Camp transformation. GSNETX received a $1 million gift from the Rees-Jones Foundation. This initial gift allowed Girl Scouts to acquire an additional 36 acres of property immediately adjacent to the camp to provide more program space while creating a buffer from the outside world. GSNETX now has almost 100 acres in the City of Dallas to serve girls and will break ground on the Rees-Jones Welcome Center this summer.

In 2016, GSNETX engaged Crescent Growth Capital to facilitate a NMTC financing so as to reduce the fundraising burden required to finance the Camp Whispering Cedars renovation. In December, 2016, CGC and GSNETX closed on a $8M NMTC financing, utilizing allocation provided by Dallas Development Fund and Capital One.

In July, 2019, Crescent Growth Capital facilitated a second NMTC financing for the Camp Whispering Cedars project, with an additional $5.5M of NMTC allocation provided by Dallas Development Fund.

Belle Glade Teen Center

April 30, 2019 by

The first Boys Club of Palm Beach County opened in West Palm Beach in 1971 providing young males a wholesome alternative to the streets. Today, BGCPBC is the largest youth development organization in the county and offers a robust portfolio of high-yield programs for $30 per child annually—or no cost; no one is turned away due to inability to pay.

BGCPBC members predominantly attend poor performing schools in a 66% -minority school district where 56% of students are eligible for the federal lunch program. Black students in particular have the lowest graduation rates state and county wide. For young low income Black males, finding meaningful employment is also extremely difficult. This troubling trend starts early with poor academic performance, particularly from ages 13 to 18; research indicates that children who live in poverty face enormous challenges to succeed in school.

Interventions are needed to halt the progression toward dropping out of school and being unemployed or under-employed, especially at the Belle Glade Teen Center where 70% of members’ families earn less than $19,000 annually; 77% of members reside in a single-parent family or other non-traditional households; and 90% of members are Black; 5% are bi/multiracial; 4% are Hispanic and 1% are White.

BGCPBC is committed to help its current 13-18-year-old members and alumni who have dropped out of post-secondary education and are struggling with joblessness and a lack of direction in their adult lives. The resultant Teen Employability Program (TEP), combining foundational education, job readiness training, structured employment in the Clubs, and career exploration, dramatically increased BGCPBC’s teen membership base by 176%–from 500 teens in 2013 to 1,381 today. Most importantly, the program has motivated academic success. In 2017, 99% of BGCPBC high school seniors graduated on time, and 75% are now entering into post-secondary educational programs (certifications, vocational, associates or four-year college tracts).

BGCPBC maintains six elementary school-based sites in the Glades allowing members to transition seamlessly to the Teen Center. This cohesion introduces younger members to programs and staff long before they are old enough to attend the Teen Center. It’s often heard that Teen Center members are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to join the Teen Center dance troupe, obtain coveted Junior Staff positions, and attend the College Tour—for nearly all, their first time on a college campus.

Unfortunately, the Teen Center in Belle Glade is turning away needy youth every day due to lack of the facilities and staff to accommodate them. So, instead of enjoying the nurturing environment and quality programs the Club has to offer, teens are going home to empty houses or worse, turning to negative influences of life on the streets.

In June of 2018, B&GC of Palm Beach County hired Crescent to pursue NMTCs in conjunction with its overall financing plan for the new teen center. Crescent worked to secure an investor commitment along with Federal NMTC allocation. In April of 2019, Crescent and the B&GC of Palm Beach County closed on $8.4M of Federal NMTCs provided by Florida Community Loan Fund, leveraging a NMTC equity investment made by US Bank.

Utilizing land donated by the County, $5.7M in capital campaign donations, and an estimated $1.3M in NMTC net benefit, B&GC of Palm Beach County began constructing the new 14,000 sf Smith & Moore Family Teen Center. The new Center will be nearly twice the size of the current Center, allowing a 300% increase in members — from 300-900 teens from the tri-city Glades area — with average daily attendance projected to increase from 125-150 to 300 – 350 post completion.

Dedicated workspaces and youth development professionals will provide the opportunity for Career Readiness programs including:
• Career Launch programs to introduce young people to the world of employment preparation, financial literacy, and internship opportunities.
• Culinary Arts program in a new teaching kitchen complimented with a Horticultural program so that students can learn gardening to table techniques.
• Performing & Visual Arts programs in areas of digital movie making, music composition and performance, and photography.
• STEM programs empowering youth to create new solutions to real-world challenges. From curriculum in App intermediate-level coding to hands on science and engineering activities.

Lincoln Children’s Zoo

April 23, 2019 by

In 1959, Arnott Folsom had a vision to create a family destination where thousands of children and adults could interact with nature. With a donation from himself and his wife as well as the help from community leaders, Lincoln Children’s Zoo was founded. Opened in the summer of 1965, the Zoo became a place where children could get up-close to animals and surround themselves in scenic gardens.

That strong support for the Zoo from the community continues to this day, and for a variety of reasons. The Zoo donates over $250,000 of tickets, train rides and memberships each year to low income families in Lincoln. The Zoo has over 100 educational programs annually, serving over 2,000 children. The Zoo is home to Lincoln’s largest family holiday events, and is home to Nebraska’s only zoo event for visually impaired children. The Zoo is also home to Zoofari with Larry the Cable Guy, and gives free videos for children in hospitals across North America, which are seen by over 100,000 children. The Zoo also provides educational opportunities for teenagers through adventure trips to Belize, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Florida.

Lincoln Children’s Zoo is taking the first step toward the largest expansion in its history, essentially doubling the size of the Zoo, while staying true to Mr. Folsom’s vision and dream. The expansion will create more interaction with animals than ever before. The giraffe experience is at the center of the expanded Zoo and will be the third in the nation to have both an indoor and outdoor viewing deck built specifically for year-round giraffe feeding. A terraced amphitheater will be located next to the habitat where families can enjoy a snack while watching the giraffes. The tiger habitat features several viewing and encounter points for guests and an expansive area of rockwork with a water feature for the tigers to roam and play. In one of the viewing areas, children can sit in the driver’s seat of a safari vehicle next to a tiger. The vehicle is divided in half by a large piece of glass and provides space for a tiger and guest to sit side by side. Just as important, the expansion will allow the Zoo to open year-round, as a number of the expansion efforts are geared to the inside, during the cold winter months.

Lincoln Children’s Zoo is also home to Lincoln Public School Science Focus Program – Zoo School students focus on science and nature in a non-traditional setting. The School has an ongoing partnership with Lincoln Public Schools to provide enhanced classroom and learning spaces, and the expansion will include the new Education and Conservation Center including laboratories, for students with an interest in science and nature, to replace the temporary classrooms. Designed for Grades 9-12, students attend 1st and 2nd periods at their “home” high school, and the rest of the day at “Zoo School” on site. Graduates of the Science Focus Program have gone on to successful careers as scientists, medical professionals, physicists, and more.

In January of 2019, the Zoo hired Crescent to pursue NMTCs in conjunction with its overall financing plan for the expansion. With the $20M+ capital campaign winding down, Crescent worked to secure an investor commitment along with Nebraska State NMTC allocation. In April of 2019, Crescent and the Lincoln Children’s Zoo closed on $10.0M of Nebraska State NMTCs provided by Petros-Pacesetter, leveraging a NMTC equity investment made by Petros-Pacesetter.

The NMTC successfully covered the financing gap, and the newly-completed Lincoln Children’s Zoo recently opened to the public, creating 12 new full-time and 15 new part-time jobs.

Healy Murphy Child Development Center

December 6, 2018 by

Healy-Murphy Center (HMC) has been serving the educational and social needs of San Antonio’s underserved populations for over 125 years. Mother Margaret Mary Healy Murphy and the Sisters of the Holy Spirit opened what was then known as St. Peter Claver Academy in 1888, and was the first Catholic school and church for African-Americans in the state of Texas. In 1970, the Sisters of the Holy Spirit revised Healy-Murphy’s mission to focus on educating youth in crisis who were not being served by traditional school and community organizations. Today, Healy-Murphy continues to educate young people living in dire circumstances. Many have been the victims of violence and abuse; most are caught in a cycle of poverty and poor health. HMC helps students lift themselves out of generational poverty and low academic achievement through an accredited high school and GED diploma program, healthcare and wellness education, career and college readiness training, and on-campus childcare.

The Child Development Center is one of the many successful programs administered by Healy-Murphy Center. A longtime Texas Rising Star provider, a designation which recognizes centers that continually exceed basic childcare standards, the Healy-Murphy Child Development Center provides quality daycare and early childhood education to 200 low income children ages 6 weeks to 5 years old. Approximately half of these infants and toddlers are the children of teen parents attending Healy-Murphy’s high school program, which provides the added benefit of allowing parents to complete their high school education, while giving their children a meaningful head start in their educational life. The remaining 50% are the children of low-income families who qualify for the City of San Antonio’s Child Care Services reimbursement program. 80% of all children come from households with incomes of less than $15,000. On average, 73% of children served are Hispanic, 21% are African-American, and 6% are Anglo. The infant and toddler program has three key components:

Early Childhood Education: The Child Development Center infant and toddler program utilizes the best-practices in early childhood education to promote sensory, motor, perceptual and language skills. Teachers and caregivers introduce these skills through materials and activities that are both child-centered and teacher-directed. By regularly observing each child’s development, teachers and caregivers plan interactions and lessons that build on children’s strengths and individual interests.

Parent Involvement and Support: Healy-Murphy values the active involvement of parents in the infant and toddler program, both through committee and classroom participation. Parent Days help the children to see their parents as important and concerned members of the center’s environment, while providing parents with opportunities to view the child with teachers and other children.

Health Services and Wellness Education: Understanding the importance of healthy physical development in the earliest years, Healy-Murphy provides free weekly well-checks for all infants and toddlers. Through a partnership with the University of Texas Health Science Center, a nurse practitioner examines each child who may be presenting signs of illness and provides consultations to their parents. Additionally, she provides regular, broad-ranging health assessments, screenings and preventive care for all infants and toddlers.

The existing Child Development Center is located at a high-traffic intersection across from the main campus and consists of buildings that are inadequate to safely meet the needs of educating and caring for nearly 200 infants and toddlers served annually. The three main CDC buildings include a retrofitted historic limestone rock home built ca. 1850, a cinderblock building built in 1987, and a two-room portable structure that is over 25 years old. Each building is in need of extensive infrastructure repairs.

In 2016, the Healy-Murphy Center engaged LPA Architects and Malitz Construction to provide an estimate for upgrading the current facilities and an estimate for building a new facility. Because the construction estimates came in at nearly $4 million, HMC decided that it would be in the best interest of its clients and their families to build a new facility, utilizing the best practices for early childhood education facility design, and safely located on Healy-Murphy Center’s main campus. The site for the new Child Development Center has already been purchased by the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate, the founders of the school and the property owners for the entirety of the main school and daycare campuses. The Sisters of the Holy Spirit purchased the land with the intent of allowing Healy-Murphy Center to construct the Child Development Center on the site upon completion of the capital campaign.

In September of 2017, HMC hired Crescent to pursue NMTCs in conjunction with its overall financing plan for the new Child Development Center. Crescent worked to secure an investor commitment along with Federal NMTC allocation. In December of 2018, Crescent and HMC closed on $6.0M of Federal NMTCs provided by Capital Impact Partners, leveraging a NMTC equity investment made by Capital One Bank. The NMTC subsidy will allow HMC to complete the Child Development Center project and retain the existing 28 employees.

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