Our Foundation
Who we are, why we started, and how we decide what to fund.
Mission
To cultivate compassionate communities where people support and uplift one another, helping individuals of all ages, and especially older adults, thrive and age in place with dignity, respect, and the highest possible quality of life. We are committed to inclusivity, mutual respect, and collective responsibility, and to supporting education, service, and opportunities that strengthen communities across generations.
Vision
Communities where older adults stay independent, purposeful, and connected in the places they call home, and where young people who receive meaningful opportunities carry them forward through service, leadership, mentorship, and generosity. Across generations the idea is the same. People helping people build stronger lives and stronger communities.
Almost nobody leaves home because they want to.
Erik Drennen spent more than three decades in home health, hospice, and Medicaid home and community based services, and retired as President and CEO of Mays Home Care in 2024. He kept seeing the same thing. People were not leaving their homes because they needed institutional care. They were leaving because ordinary needs, a ride to an appointment, a loose step, a hearing problem, a phone that had stopped making sense, or simply somebody dependable nearby, had quietly become too much to manage.
That is the observation we built the Foundation around, and it is why Thrive at Home looks at transportation and grab bars and neighbors rather than at clinical care.
How it started
Erik and Nikki Drennen established the Drennen Family Foundation in 2021 to put money and time behind values that had already shaped their family and their work: compassion, service, personal responsibility, education, and helping people stay connected to their communities.
The first active program, Pay It Forward Scholars, grew from the same belief. Rather than treating education as financial assistance, the family wanted to make real investments in young people of character and potential, and to ask them to use what they receive to create opportunities for someone else.
Erik and Nikki are still the ones doing the work, together with their daughter Avery, who chairs the Pay It Forward Selection Committee.
What we hold to
Compassion
Recognizing real needs and responding in practical, meaningful ways.
Dignity and independence
Helping people keep choice, purpose, and connection throughout their lives.
Opportunity
Investing meaningfully in people at the point where support makes a lasting difference.
Service
Encouraging people to use their time, talents, education, and experience for others.
Responsibility
Opportunity carries an obligation to help someone else move forward.
Community
Strengthening the ties among families, neighbors, volunteers, organizations, and local resources.
Stewardship
Using Foundation resources thoughtfully, personally, and with a long view of impact.
Leadership
Erik Drennen, RN, BSN
President and Co-Founder
A retired healthcare executive and registered nurse whose career spanned more than three decades in home health, hospice, Medicaid home and community based services, and other programs designed to keep people independent where they live. He retired as President and CEO of Mays Home Care in 2024. Erik leads the Foundation’s strategy, operations, and program development.
Nikki Drennen
Co-Founder
Nikki co-founded the Foundation and shapes its priorities, its values, and its family-centered approach to giving. She reviews Foundation initiatives, scholarship activity, and communications, and she is the one who keeps the work personal, practical, and grounded in the values the family started with.
Avery Schuller, PT, DPT
Chair, Pay It Forward Selection Committee
A physical therapist who chairs the Pay It Forward Selection Committee. Avery runs the review and selection process, looking at the whole student: character, resilience, academic ambition, leadership, service, financial need, and where they are headed. She also helps set program direction and community priorities.
A private foundation, and what that means
Drennen Family Foundation is a tax-exempt private foundation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. We are not a large public charity and not a fundraising organization. The approach is deliberately personal and selective, focused on the places where our resources make a real difference.
Pay It Forward Scholars is invitation only and is not geographically limited. Awards are meant to be substantial and needs-aware rather than broadly distributed, and a scholar may be considered for continued support in later years.
Thrive at Home is a developing initiative. It is not an operating healthcare, home care, referral, or direct service program. We are currently exploring community partnerships and practical models.
Talk to us
There is no staff and no grant officer. Whatever you send reaches one of the three of us.