Flinthills Services

Flinthills Services is a community-service provider for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities throughout Butler County in Kansas. Like many agencies of its kind, it was started by a group of concerned parents and individuals who wanted to create better opportunities for people with disabilities.

“Our society hasn't always been very kind to people with disabilities,” says Executive Director Kathy Walker. “Years ago, folks realized that there's more to life than putting a person with a disability in an institution or a nursing home.

“Some people we serve are very medically fragile,” she continues. “Some people need only a few hours of support a day, or maybe even just a few hours a week. And so we provide a wide variety of services.”

Flinthills offers a day program that teaches life skills and focuses on adult learning, community integration, community volunteering, and learning social skills. And Kathy is particularly proud of the work program, an in-house shredding business that employs many of the individuals Flinthills serves. “They learn work skills, and they have the pride of earning their first paycheck,” Kathy says.

Flinthills also offers residential programs for live-in care, targeted case management, and medical coordination. And each program and service is created with the individual in mind and intended to help people with disabilities become fulfilled individuals. “That's really what everybody wants. They want to live their life with dignity and purpose.”

Since Kathy started in 2011, she has seen Flinthills Services grow in overall size and in the number of services they provide throughout the county. She attributes much of that to the relationship they’ve built with INTRUST Bank over the years. “It's because of INTRUST that we have been able to grow to the point we've grown now,” says Kathy. “They do everything. And a lot of it just starts with dreaming. You know, ‘This is what we want to do. How can we get there?’ So I don't really have to worry about the details.”

When Kathy and her team wanted to expand in Andover, INTRUST played an integral role in that endeavor. Having finally found a suitable building, Flinthills looked to INTRUST to finance it and discuss the plans. “We picked up the phone, went to INTRUST, and they were right on it.”

“One of the really amazing things,” she says, “was not only were we able to finance that building at a very affordable rate, but we were able to consolidate all the other notes we had with INTRUST into a consolidated note.” The consolidation lowered their monthly obligation considerably, which was a relief for Kathy and her team. “That's huge for a nonprofit. We operate on a really small margin. I was like, this is a dream come true. It made a huge difference.

“We have our hands full providing services for over 150 people. We need a bank that we can go to, and that we can trust to take care of the details of our financial needs and our growth needs. It's huge because it frees us up to really pursue the things that are important at Flinthills Services.”

Kathy truly enjoys the time she can spend with her clients. “My favorite part of my job is absolutely getting to be involved with the people we serve.” Her long-term goal is to see Flinthills Services continue to grow and evolve over the years, and to make a greater impact on society. “I hope to see that our world becomes a better place for all of us. But mostly that people with developmental disabilities are looked at as viable, contributing citizens. It really does make a difference.”