Bringing Dreams Home

How Butterfly Dreamz, Flourish Church, and a CWC Grant Helped Transform Community in Gary

When Joy founded Butterfly Dreamz in Newark, New Jersey in 2013, she wasn’t simply creating a youth program. She was transforming personal loss into purpose. The organization emerged after Joy’s family lost her younger sister to gun violence. In the midst of grief, she became determined to create opportunities for young people to discover their gifts, develop confidence, and pursue their dreams.

Through mentorship, leadership development, internships, and community engagement, Butterfly Dreamz spent more than a decade helping young people become leaders within their communities. But Gary was always part of the vision. “It was always kind of my hope and my dream to be able to come back to Gary,” Joy said.

That opportunity arrived during the pandemic when a family property became available. The house, once owned by Joy’s grandmother, was transformed into a community space affectionately known as Grandma’s House. By 2021, Butterfly Dreamz was actively serving young people in Gary, bringing with it years of experience and lessons learned from its work on the East Coast. “We wanted to bring some of the things that we learned in Newark to Gary,” Joy said.

As Butterfly Dreamz established roots in the city, another connection was beginning to take shape. Joy’s sister Tiffany, who serves on the Butterfly Dreamz board, was already connected to Flourish Church and its community development efforts. Through those relationships, conversations began between the two organizations. It quickly became clear they shared many of the same goals: investing in young people, strengthening neighborhoods, and creating opportunities that could not be achieved alone. “It was really just very natural and also very, I would say, spiritual in terms of the alignment,” Joy said.

For Pastor Dexter Harris and the team at Flourish Church, the opportunity wasn’t about creating a new program. It was about strengthening work that was already making a difference in the community. “We’re also really big on not reinventing the wheel,” Pastor Harris said. “If we feel like someone is already doing it, we can put our ego and logo to the side and say, how do we get underneath, how do we get around, how do we empower what is already happening.”

That philosophy became the foundation of the partnership. Rather than operating separately, Butterfly Dreamz and Flourish Church chose to combine their strengths. Butterfly Dreamz brought youth development expertise and a proven leadership model. Flourish Church brought community relationships, volunteers, and a growing network of local partners. Together, they would create opportunities neither organization could have accomplished alone.

Filling a Missing Gap

One of the reasons the partnership worked so well was because each organization brought something the other needed. For Flourish Church, Butterfly Dreamz filled an important gap in the ecosystem of support already being built for young people in Gary.

While many youth programs naturally focused on serving young men, Pastor Harris recognized a need for stronger leadership development opportunities specifically designed for girls and young women. Butterfly Dreamz brought exactly that.

Its leadership model helped ensure more young people could find opportunities to grow, lead, and thrive. Rather than duplicating efforts, the partnership expanded what was possible for both organizations and the community they served.

What the Grant Made Possible

The Congregations With Community grant gave the partnership the resources to move beyond ideas and into action. One of the most significant opportunities created through the grant was a paid internship program for local youth.

For many participants, it was the first time they had ever been offered a paid opportunity to learn, lead, and contribute to their community. “At that time the city really didn’t have many paid internships or paid opportunities for young people,” Joy said.

The internships were intentionally designed to be more than summer jobs. Students developed leadership skills, participated in community research, engaged in civic conversations, and gained experience working on projects that would directly impact their neighborhoods. For families, the opportunity mattered. For students, it reinforced an important message: their ideas, perspectives, and contributions had value.

Listening to Young People

One of the internship projects focused on youth mental health and community well-being. As students interviewed peers and explored challenges facing young people in Gary, a consistent theme emerged.

“One of the things that they talked about was just the spaces—not having enough spaces to come and be free and feel safe,” Joy said.

The feedback revealed something important. Young people weren’t simply asking for more programs. They were asking for places to belong. That insight would ultimately shape one of the partnership’s most visible accomplishments.

Transforming a Neighborhood Gathering Place

Directly across from Grandma’s House sat a neighborhood park called Elsie’s Park. Technically, it was a community asset. In reality, years of neglect had left it underutilized and difficult to enjoy. “The park was pretty much unusable,” Joy said. “It needed a lot of love and care.”

Instead of viewing the challenge as someone else’s responsibility, the partnership got to work. With support from CWC, Flourish Church, the City of Gary, Love Your Block, volunteers, and neighborhood residents, the team began revitalizing the space. What started as youth-led research evolved into a community-wide effort to create a safer, more welcoming environment for families.

The project demonstrated the power of collaboration in action. Butterfly Dreamz brought the youth voice. Flourish Church mobilized volunteers and relationships. The City and other partners provided support and resources. Together, they transformed an idea into something tangible.

For Joy, one of the most meaningful aspects of the project was watching students move from identifying problems to helping create solutions. Rather than simply studying community needs, they became part of the work itself.

When the Community Shows Up

The impact became visible almost immediately. As volunteers worked in the park, neighbors began coming outside to watch, participate, and reconnect with a space many had long since stopped using.

“Seeing people come out of their front doors and engaging us as we were doing the park and some of the kids coming and helping, it was just a really powerful moment,” Pastor Harris said.

The transformation wasn’t only physical. It was relational. Families gathered. Children played. Residents interacted with one another. A neglected space began functioning like a community space again.

Perhaps most importantly, people felt ownership. Joy remembers hearing community members express pride in what had been accomplished—not because someone had done something for them, but because they had become part of it. That sense of shared investment became one of the clearest signs that the work was making a difference.

Multiplying Impact Through Partnership

Neither organization believes these outcomes would have happened alone. Throughout the project, both Joy and Pastor Harris repeatedly pointed to the multiplying effect of partnership.

Butterfly Dreamz gained access to new relationships, city connections, volunteers, and community networks. Flourish Church expanded opportunities for youth, particularly girls and young women. Additional partnerships emerged naturally because each organization brought different strengths to the table.

The result wasn’t simply additive. It was exponential. As the network grew, so did the opportunities available to young people and families throughout the community.

More Than Funding

Both leaders describe their experience with Congregations With Community as a key part of that success. Beyond providing financial support, CWC created space for collaboration, accountability, and shared learning. The grant process itself felt approachable and supportive, allowing organizations to focus more energy on impact and less on bureaucracy.

Most importantly, the investment communicated trust. “It allowed us to have some tangible things to say, this is what’s possible when you invest in us,” Joy said.

That investment produced visible outcomes: paid internships, youth leadership development, stronger partnerships, community research, and a revitalized public space. But it also produced something harder to measure. Hope.

A Different Experience With Church

For Pastor Harris, one of the most meaningful outcomes has nothing to do with membership numbers or attendance. It has to do with perception. Through the partnership, young people encountered a church that showed up, listened, invested, and worked alongside the community.

“My hope too is that some of the young people that we got an opportunity to work with, even if they never stepped foot in the church, they can look back down the corridors of the history of their experience here in Gary with Butterfly Dreams and the church and have a positive experience,” Pastor Harris said.

That vision reflects the heart of Congregations With Community.

When congregations and community organizations work together, communities flourish.

In Gary, that collaboration has created opportunities for young people, strengthened neighborhood connections, transformed public space, and demonstrated what becomes possible when organizations choose partnership over isolation.

And it all started with a dream coming home.