Missing Pieces Community Development Corp: Driving Hope, Safety, and Opportunity for Those Who Need It Most

By Lilliana Lynch

Editor’s Note: This story was produced by a student participating in the Evansville News Lab-a Change Lab of the University of Evansville Center of Innovation and Change as part of a Fall 2025 reporting project highlighting the work and impact of local nonprofit organizations. Our Times is proud to share these stories in support of the next generation of journalists.

Founded in 2017 by Geronica Hazelwood Conner, the Missing Pieces Community Development Corp has grown from a family-led outreach effort into a transformative organization serving low-income residents, seniors, students, and individuals with disabilities. What began as a mission to help people in crisis has evolved into a powerful movement providing free transportation, emergency assistance, and youth mentorship—empowering people to live safer, more independent lives.

The foundation’s free mass transit program gives residents access to reliable, high-quality transportation at no cost. The initiative not only improves, but also supports, public safety and community stability. By providing transportation to jobs and essential services, Missing Pieces helps reduce crime, increase access to healthcare and healthy foods, and connect residents to higher-paying employment opportunities.

Seniors Against Fearful Environments: The Beginning of the Mission

The foundation’s transit work began through a program called “Seniors Against Fearful Environments”. Conner, her sister Gamia Lechelle Stuart, and their mother noticed seniors and disabled residents being forgotten and becoming targets of petty crimes that would never be solved. They began using their own cars to take people to banks, grocery stores, and medical appointments.

In 2019, the family received their first wheelchair-accessible vehicle, allowing them to serve even more residents. Now, Missing Pieces has grown Seniors Against Fearful Environments to include different routes helping more people with reliable transportation to their jobs.  One of the programs is designed to help individuals in transitional housing, sober living programs, or reentry after incarceration. For many, transportation can be the difference between stability and returning to the justice system.

Honoring a Legacy: The Gamia Lechelle Stuart Memorial Fund

Tragedy struck in 2022 when Conner’s sister, Gamia Lechelle Stuart, who had been Missing Pieces’ first volunteer, lost her life to domestic violence. In her honor, the foundation established the Gamia Lechelle Stuart Memorial Fund, which provides emergency assistance to survivors escaping violent environments, particularly women and children.

The fund also awards an annual scholarship to college-bound seniors who have lost a parent or sibling to domestic violence, gun violence, or other trauma. “It is one of our most successful programs in that it helps those in need,” Conner says. “We wish it didn’t have to exist, but while this issue stands, we will help those fighting for a better life.”

Building Future Leaders

The foundation’s Future Leaders of the World mentor program has been part of Missing Pieces since the beginning. Serving youth ages five to 18, the program prepares children for the next level through college preparatory training, character development, and leadership building.

Older students— 12 and up—participate in financial literacy classes, learning about budgeting, banking, cryptocurrency, and investing. Some students have even begun trading on their own. “We teach kids to value money and build for themselves,” Conner says.

“I am putting my kids through this program,” Conner explains. “I am putting nieces and nephews through this program.” The oldest participant of F.L.O.W. is a junior in high school, and the program has a graduate who is doing well as a freshman in college.

Partnerships and Perseverance

Missing Pieces collaborates with organizations including United Way, EMPO, RTAC, and Talent 25 in Healthcare and Job Care, as well as using Charity Tracker, which allows agencies to share information and coordinate aid throughout the city. Funding, however, comes from grants written by Conner, securing nearly $15 million in funding throughout her career.

The foundation operates with a small, close-knit staff of fewer than 12 employees. Every driver is trained on all routes, ensuring reliability and flexibility. When necessary, Conner herself steps in to drive a bus route. Even during the height of COVID-19, Missing Pieces continued serving the community safely by enforcing strict health protocols, including temperature checks and mask requirements. As a result, no staff member had COVID-19 during the pandemic.

Volunteer opportunities are limited but meaningful. Those interested can help by washing buses or assisting seniors on shopping trips.

A Legacy of Service

For Conner, service is second nature. She began volunteering at age 11, tutoring and helping wherever she could. “I’ve always known how to make money,” she says. “But finding purpose—that’s what matters. This work fulfills me.”

Through the Missing Pieces Foundation, that sense of purpose now fuels a movement—one that uplifts, protects, and empowers some of the community’s most vulnerable residents. From free transportation to emergency assistance and youth mentorship, Missing Pieces fills the gaps where others fall short.