Happy Summer Community Partners,

We have been busy here at the Brightwood Community Center! This past spring we assisted 142 people through our partnership with Thomas Ridley’s 1 Like Me and the Marion County Prosecutors Office to reinstate their driver’s license to enable them to maintain and obtain jobs when they previously had trouble keeping due to their license being suspended. We thank our partners for making it happen!

The Brightwood Community Center participated in the installation of 68 smoke detectors in our neighbors homes with the help of Red Cross and our neighbors! We continue to serve our seniors and families through our monthly Sharing Food Pantry. As we are a mobile pantry, we have served 1200+ people to include children, parents and seniors so far this year! Thanks to our partners at Midwest Food Bank, Indianapolis Urban League, U-Haul, Oasis of Hope and the Eastside Seven Day Adventist Church, A BIG SHOUT OUT to our wonderful VOLUNTEERS!! We could not do it without them!

In the month of June, we began our S.P.A.R.K.S Summer Camp with 28 youth between the ages of 4-18! We partnered with Teenworks to pay our teens a stipend as they worked in the role of Camp Counselor. Our kids have reading time every day as well as botany, science experiments and math. We did are having some fun as well. We have swimming every week. 5 of our campers that could not swim before attending camp have learned to do so now. SPARKS also went roller skating and will be attending day camp at Camptown to expand their outdoor learning.

Camp ends on July 22, 2022 with a fabulous Block Party and ALL are invited to celebrate our children that participated in camp before the kids return to school.

Did you know that most of the people that live in our area, on average make less that $25,000 a year?  That wage is unacceptable to survive let alone thrive. BWCC is here to advocate for our neighbors to increase their career choices as well as learn the right skills to pay the bills. We are working to solidify our workforce development programming and will be offering open computer lab, job search assistance, interview preparation, soft skill training as well as job training in house and referrals to apprenticeship programs!

Additionally, BCC is working to bring AIDS/HIV/STI testing and sex education in partnership with Step Up! Another partnership we are excited about is with Overdose Lifeline to become a NaloxBox location for the 46218! According to statistics the OPIOD epidemic is a growing problem in our community! Last year, according to IMPD data, there was double the amount of overdose deaths as deaths related to gun violence! Too many in my opinion. SHOUTOUT to PACE, Inc for leading the charge in educating and advocating for substance use programming! We are happy to be a part of the team to do the same!

Be the change you want to see!

Brightwood Community Center is dedicated to being the best Neighborhood Core Service Center that we can! Please do not hesitate to let us know how else we can support the community and support our families!

We have SO much more to do and we are just getting started! Stay safe, healthy and Blessed!

#WeAreBrightwood