VH Dream Center gets $45K T-Mobile grant
SCOTTSVILLE, Ky. (WNKY) — The Victory Hill Dream Center in Scottsville received a $45,000 T-Mobile Hometown Grant on Friday, Aug. 7, to rebuild and expand a heavily used community Share Station that provides food and other resources to people in the area.
The Dream Center was one of 26 organizations nationwide selected in the final round of T-Mobile’s Hometown Grants program. Its project was chosen from more than 2,000 applicants this quarter.
Center serves hundreds of meals each day
Amy Payne, executive director of the Victory Hill Dream Center, said the grant will allow the organization to replace a Share Station that has become worn down after years of heavy use.
“It means absolutely everything,” Payne said. “We are so overwhelmed with gratitude for this opportunity to expand and better improve our Share Station.”
Payne said the Dream Center distributes between 100 and 300 meals a day through the center.
The Share Station began as a small shelving unit, she said, before the organization realized how extensively the community would use it. It has since been used for food, nonperishable items and other resources.
“Oftentimes, it’s just not large enough,” Payne said.
The $45,000 grant will help create a more durable structure with improved lighting and refrigeration.
Refrigeration could make food available around the clock
Payne said one of the biggest changes will be the ability to safely make refrigerated food available outside regular operating hours.
Community members sometimes bring refrigerated food to the Dream Center to donate, but staff currently may have to keep those items inside once the center closes.
“If it’s after hours and there’s a need, sometimes we can’t fill that need until the next day,” Payne said. “And this will allow us to fill that need 24/7.”
The expanded station is also intended to reduce barriers for people who may need help but are uncomfortable walking into the center and asking for it.
“We want to eliminate any barrier that might stop someone from taking a little extra to help make ends meet, or maybe missing a meal because there’s not an open door, there’s not a familiar face, or there might be something that keeps them from walking in the door and asking for help,” Payne said.
She described the station as a way for people to get what they need, when they need it.
The project also reflects the Dream Center’s mission to “love people where they are without leaving them where they are at.”
“This helps us live out our mission by really meeting the needs of our community when they need them,” Payne said.
T-Mobile says project stood out among applicants
Brian McGriff, senior manager of rural markets with T-Mobile, said the Dream Center represented the type of community-focused project the Hometown Grants program was created to support.
“The Dream Center, this is exactly the kind of programs that we look for, ones that are engaging in community, where we get to give back and where we get to come in and give back to the communities that give so much to us as a company,” McGriff said.
He said the Dream Center’s work involving recovery and feeding people in the community aligned with T-Mobile’s values.
“This was a perfect pairing for us and an amazing program that we are so excited to support,” McGriff said.
McGriff said the Scottsville proposal stood out because of its connection to the community and the impact Dream Center staff described having on people facing significant needs.
“This particular program, again, really stands out to us because it embodies the community,” McGriff said. “It embodies giving back to the communities and embodies being a part of something bigger.”
McGriff said the Scottsville grant was the fourth Hometown Grants project he has been involved with in Kentucky during the past five years.
Nearly $525,000 awarded to Kentucky projects
Since 2021, T-Mobile has awarded 12 Hometown Grants across Kentucky totaling nearly $525,000.
Nationwide, the initiative has invested more than $22.8 million in 500 community projects across 49 states and Puerto Rico since it began in 2021.
McGriff said supporting smaller communities has been a major part of T-Mobile’s efforts during the past five years.
“Small towns [are] a big part of who T-Mobile is,” McGriff said. “It’s been a big commitment to who we are as a company.”
He said T-Mobile’s investment in small communities has extended beyond the Hometown Grants program to other initiatives focused on towns across the country.
McGriff said Scottsville is among the final recipients of the Hometown Grants initiative as the program comes to an end.
“We hate that this program is ending,” McGriff said. “Scottsville is going to be one of the last recipients of this grant.”
He said the program has had an impact in communities nationwide, including more than half a million dollars invested in Kentucky.
For McGriff, seeing residents gather in Scottsville to celebrate the grant was part of what made the program meaningful.
“The show out to this town is amazing,” McGriff said. “That’s, to me, always the biggest thing about doing these events, is being able to watch the community come together, celebrate each other.”
For the Victory Hill Dream Center, the investment will now turn toward rebuilding a resource Payne says people already rely on every day — and making it available to meet needs at more times of the day.
