Amy Blansit
Instructor, Kinesiology Department
This year’s public affairs theme is Unity in Community. Amy Blansit, an instructor in the Kinesiology department, lives this mission daily in her work with the community. For over three years, Amy has been volunteering with the Northwest Project—a community-wide effort, led by the Drew Lewis Foundation (of which Amy is the founder) to streamline resources and systems in the community to alleviate poverty.
The project–which targets northwest Springfield due to its astonishing poverty rate–is housed at the Fairbanks, a community center that Amy and her late husband purchased in 2013 and remodeled to benefit Grant Beach residents. Services include childcare, community dinners with programming, diapers and hygiene kits, a community garden, and various other events and classes. Amy specifically is involved with operations management, policy development, and maintaining relationships with other agencies. Other projects include the Healthy Homes Initiative, Project RISE (which focuses on rural outreach), and the Blue House Project (which aims to help clients establish connections with banks to improve their credit scores and eventually own a home).
The Fairbanks also houses Springfield Brewing Company’s Community Bike Shop. The program repairs donated bikes and provides them to children and individuals with transportation issues at a low cost (or in exchange for volunteering). Many other community organizations are also connected with DLF at the Fairbanks. For example, SE Rotary volunteers on a monthly basis to support the NWP. Amy is setting the stage to increase programming: the Fairbanks will soon open a market, laundromat, coffee shop, and library. There are also plans for an after-school program for youth and job development programs for adults in partnership with Life360 Fairbanks. We are so pleased to spotlight Amy in September for all her contributions to the community and for her dedication to our Missouri State University public affairs mission. Thank you and good luck with your continued work on the Northwest Project!