Your Story. Our Community.

The best advice I’ve ever received is ‘don’t sweat the small stuff.’ In starting new initiatives and helping more people, it’s easy to get lost in the details. Overall, the vision for where we’re going is the most important thing. With this amazing partnership, we’re able to now get ahead of the huge wave of seniors that will be in our county before we know it. One of the biggest problems that seniors face is isolation. It’s so important for seniors to know that their community cares about them.

The library has played a big role in my personal life. I came from the Congo. Growing up we didn’t have libraries, my first encounter with a library was in high school, where we had a small library of old books. Even in college access to books was a rarity. The library is a place for healing, a true asset for the community. There’s no worse enemy for humans than ignorance. Building your knowledge wrecks barriers that keep us apart. The library is a place for connecting with people. When you come here you forget about all of your differences. You don’t see division in race, religion, gender, socio-economic. It is a place to share knowledge. I imagine that we are here in a sea of knowledge and we’re all here swimming in it!
–José, patron at The Indianapolis Public Library

I got hooked on theatre very young. In elementary school, I felt like it fit and it was fun…I had a good middle/high school teacher. Theatre was fun and she pushed us. For a lot of children—and even adults–the IRT has been their one theatre experience. That is a great thing to tout. [Among] our sisters/brother theatres across the country, we still have the largest student matinee program.
–Milicent, manager of outreach programs at Indiana Repertory Theatre

It’s hard to think that at this time in your life, when you can’t care for yourself, seems like God has stepped in providing a place like this. It’s taken a lot of people to help us. It started as an exercise place to go with other seniors, after we’d just moved to Indy. My husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s shortly after starting here, so we started in a rough place. They’ve helped us with Alzheimer’s classes, physical exercise and therapy, rides for appointments and shopping. They’re like our family.
–Marilyn, member at PrimeLife

Exodus made our move to America easy because everything was organized. We got on a plane from Jordan to Turkey. Then we went from Turkey to Washington D.C. Finally we went from Washington D.C. to Indianapolis. A caseworker was waiting for us at the airport. At every airport there was someone there to help us out. Exodus helped us with our paperwork. In one month we had our birth certificate and social security. Exodus also helped us with programs they had setup about moving here to America. How we find a job, save money at a bank, and with learning the English language. Anytime we needed help, Exodus was there for us.
–Basimah & Mohammad, guests at Exodus Refugee

No one should be invisible…the depth and breadth of services that we have here for homeless folks, is really important. Even with our small staff we see 200 people a day. We focus on quality and focus on doing what’s right for the people we serve. We have barbers that come in several days a month. If someone has a job interview, we can provide them with the clothes, the resume, the bus tickets and even a haircut!
–Teresa, executive director at Horizon House