Villa awarded Community Service Tax Credits

The Kansas Department of Commerce awarded $4.13 million in Community Service Tax Credits to 20 nonprofit organizations around the state, including Schowalter Villa in Hesston.

“We’re excited to award tax credits to these deserving organizations,” said Kansas Department of Commerce Secretary David D. Kerr. “These tax credits are a great way to spur investment in community improvement projects across the state.”

Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities of Kansas Inc. (doing business as Schowalter Villa) was one of awarded Kansas Tax Credits for their project “My Garden, My Home.” The $250,000 tax credits will generate $357,100 in donations to fund facility upgrades in health care, including modernizing resident rooms and creating a secured garden where residents and children from the connected child-care program can be outdoors together.

Residents advocated the changes to the courtyard.

They reminisced about active outdoor lifestyles before they experienced changes in their health-care needs.

“Being able to roll my wheelchair around and check things out, sort of like checking the fence line on the farm,” Merle Selzer said.

Plans include securing the courtyard area to allow a safe place for outdoor living and adding walkways, raised gardens and a water feature.

In addition to the outdoor improvements, the focus of this project includes interior enhancements. A few of the improvements planned are re-designed closet/storage space, installation of bay windows in resident rooms and updated lighting in hallways.

Closet space is at a premium for many residents and the way they are configured, the space is difficult for residents in wheelchairs or with other physical limitations to retrieve or store items themselves.

New closet systems will improve storage and accessibility. Adding bay windows and new lighting in the hallways will further enhance everyone’s living spaces, a news release stated.

“When this project is completed, the people who live at Schowalter Villa will enjoy safe and easy access to outdoor areas for relaxation, gardening or walking. Resident room updates in the 300 and 400 halls will result in brighter and more spacious rooms with improved personal storage.

Schowalter’s plans are to start construction soon and have all phases completed in 2011, said Treva Greaser, VP Health Services.

“We are always looking at ways that we can expand our interactions with the residents of Schowalter Villa,” said Judy Friesen, director of the Hesston Intergenerational Child Development Center. “One of the areas of emphasis at the center is helping reconnect young children with the out-of-doors and the world of nature. This new project will give us a new avenue to help children learn about growing plants in the company of, and with the help of, the grandmas and grandpas from the Villa. This also will be a new and welcome format for our interactions.”

Schowalter Villa has Kansas Income Tax Credits available, for the 2009 tax year, to anyone wishing to make a contribution to this project.

For example, qualified donors who give $1,000 to this approved project would receive 70 percent (or $700) tax credit against their Kansas income tax liability in addition, the donors would receive federal tax benefits if they itemize, which would again decrease their tax liability.

For tax years 2009 and 2010, donors receive 90 percent of the normal credit value which results in a 63 percent credit, due to a budget-balancing effort by the Legislature in May 2009.

For more details about this project or about the Community Service Tax Credit Program, contact Cindy Wierwille or Al Penner at Schowalter Villa Development Department at 705 S. Main, Suite 206, Hesston (620) 327-2007, or development@svilla.org.