Nonprofit celebrates community impact through innovation, entrepreneurship

by Asher Bookspan, WSBT 22 Reporter

July 12, 2023

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WSBT) — A celebration was held Wednesday night for a nonprofit working to attract and keep new workers in the South Bend/Elkhart area.

enFocus has been working in the community for 11 years and focuses on finding young talent to bring into the community.

Since they began, enFocus has had more than 200 fellowships, 1,300 internships and has completed 597 projects.

enFocus and its partners are closing out their fellowship year by sharing the projects they worked on over the last 12 months.

32 fellows from enFocus worked on more than 60 projects.

They partner with local sponsors to help bring new ideas that will benefit the community to life.

"If we can offer a varied experience on multiple types of projects to work with, different organizations, multiple leaders, it increases what we call that ‘stickiness’, those relationships to open those doors,” said Andrew Wiand, enFocus Executive Director.

The fellowship program includes work in the civic and manufacturing sectors, but they all have the same goal:

Bring innovation to the South Bend/Elkhart region to enhance lives in the community. Their goal is to not only make the community better but retain young workers in the region.

One fellow who works as a language pathologist joined enFocus to help others in her profession, and she plans to stay with the nonprofit.

“I wanted to pursue some tech solutions to help expedite the workflow for speech language pathologists so enFocus has given me the support to know how to get started with that process, where to take it, how to validate it, and how to get started developing the technology to solve those problems,” said Caitlin Sears, Innovation Fellow Civic Portfolio.

Another fellow says he's thankful for an opportunity right out of college to work with companies and grow as a professional in a supportive environment.

He was nervous about the work he was going to do but felt that he was able to get help whenever he needed it.

"It’s an amazing opportunity to learn so much, and at the same time, develop professionally. And most importantly, we get to have an impact in the region. I'd say that's what we are all about,” said Akash Praharaj, Industry Innovation Fellow.