Through grant funding from Avista's Named Communities Investment Fund, Maddie's Place completed energy-efficiency and air-quality improvements that support its work with infants exposed to substances before birth and the parents working toward recovery alongside them.
Each day at Maddie's Place, infants recovering from prenatal substance exposure begin a healing journey alongside parents and caregivers working toward recovery themselves. The Spokane nonprofit's mission depends on creating an environment wherein families can rest, recover and build a foundation for the future.
That’s why an energy-efficiency project funded through Avista's Named Communities Investment Fund, or NCIF, was about much more than new equipment.
The upgrades improved air quality, comfort and building performance, helping Maddie's Place better utilize the space that supports some of the community's most vulnerable families.
Maddie’s Place is one of only a handful of programs in the country focused on helping both infants and parents heal together. Its model recognizes that strong outcomes happen when families receive support as a unit.
Creating the right environment is a critical part of that work.
"We want Maddie's Place to be a safe and welcoming, comfortable place for babies and parents to recover, to start their healing journey," Maddie’s Place Director of Advancement & Marketing Katie Tolley said. "It needs to be welcoming, quiet, comfortable and clean. And that includes the air quality and the temperature."
The project began when a community partner introduced Maddie's Place to Avista's NCIF program.
"We had never heard of it. We didn't even know it existed," Katie said.
After an energy audit, Avista found ways to improve comfort, air quality and efficiency throughout the building.
The final project included heating and cooling upgrades, improved system controls and air quality improvements that created a more comfortable indoor environment while supporting long-term energy efficiency.
"Avista’s Named Communities Investment Fund allowed us to replace some of our heating and cooling system and upgrade other parts of that system that enabled us to be more energy efficient, to offer better air quality in our building and especially in our nurseries," Katie said.
Reducing energy usage and avoiding costly emergency repairs is also helping Maddie’s Place direct more resources toward its mission.
"Every dollar that we save paying for energy or replacing equipment is a dollar that we can pour back into the infants and the families that we serve," Katie said.
Beyond energy savings, staff are already noticing improvements.
"Each of the individual rooms that the infants and parents stay in feel more comfortable already," Katie said.
The upgraded system also allows staff to monitor building performance remotely and respond quickly if issues arise, helping prevent disruptions for families and employees.
The Avista Named Communities Investment Fund is a clean energy grant program created through Avista's Clean Energy Implementation Plan (CEIP). The program supports projects that benefit Avista customers in Named Communities, helping cover the cost of improvements that advance clean energy goals while delivering meaningful community benefits.
For organizations such as Maddie's Place, the program can make projects possible that might otherwise be delayed or out of reach.
"This was such a large project and was a significant investment of funds that we just weren't prepared for at the time," Katie said. "We're just so grateful that Avista Utilities supports this work in a way that allows us to keep doing the hard and beautiful work that we do here."
Katie said the project is another example of what can happen when organizations work together to support their communities.
"There's no way that we could do any of this work alone," she said. "It really takes a community."