Helping people live with independence, purpose, and connection across generations.
We help older adults stay in their own homes, and invest in students who give it back. Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
A private family foundation with two programs.
Erik and Nikki Drennen started the Foundation in 2021. Pay It Forward Scholars makes substantial, needs-aware investments in a small number of students and stays with them. Thrive at Home is our developing work on the ordinary, practical problems that decide whether an older adult gets to stay in their own home.
We are a private foundation, not a public charity and not a fundraising organization. The work is personal and selective, and we would rather do a few things properly than many things thinly.
Thrive at Home
In development. Not a home care agency, a referral service, or a direct service program.
Thrive at Home asks one question. What would it take for more older adults to stay safely and meaningfully in the homes and communities they already know?
We are exploring practical ways to connect everyday needs to the strengths a community already has: neighbors, volunteers, churches, civic groups, local businesses, healthcare organizations, and retired professionals. The initiative is in the listening and partnership building stage, with an early area of interest in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas.
What gets in the way
A ride to an appointment, an errand, or something worth going to
Minor home maintenance and safety work
Phones, computers, and services that have stopped making sense
Isolation, and the loss of regular human contact
Mobility and hearing barriers that make ordinary days harder
Finding local help you can actually trust
Family who want to help but live too far away
Local resources that exist but are scattered and hard to find
None of these are medical problems. All of them are solvable, usually by somebody who already lives nearby.
Pay It Forward Scholars
Active, and invitation only. There is no public application.
Meaningful help at the right time can change the direction of a student’s life, and it keeps moving outward. Rather than spreading small awards broadly, we make substantial investments in a few students, sized to what each one still owes after every other scholarship and aid package is counted. We stay involved as they go, and we renew when a scholar keeps earning it.
In Pay It Forward support since the program began in 2025. Three scholars are carried through the 2026 to 2027 academic year, at the University of Alabama, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Mississippi.
The first award, $20,000, went out in 2025. A year later that scholar was continuing in kinesiology on a pre-medicine track, in an honors program, and mentoring elementary students through hands-on STEM work. That is the whole idea, working.
How we work
Money goes to services, not overhead.
Funding is directed toward services, participants, and measurable impact rather than administration, facilities, or organizational expansion.
Local people own the work.
The strongest partners bring local knowledge, relationships, credibility, and the willingness to take responsibility for the outcome. We are not looking for a grantee to administer.
Catalytic, not permanent.
We will fund a worthy idea to get it started. The goal is lasting community capacity, not lasting dependence on Foundation grants, so we look for a credible path to sustainability.
Start small, prove it, then grow.
We would rather back something that begins thoughtfully, measures whether it is actually helping people, adjusts, and shows results before it expands.
There is no staff and no grant officer. You will be talking to one of us.
Established in 2021 by Erik and Nikki Drennen. A tax-exempt private foundation under Section 501(c)(3), EIN 87-4091486. Paris, Texas.
If you already know what your community needs
We are looking for people and organizations with local knowledge, real relationships, and the willingness to own the work. We fund the idea. You run it.