Recognizing the Shepherd Community Center

Floor Speech

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Mr. YOUNG. Mr. President, I rise to recognize Shepherd Community Center's 35 years of service to individuals and families on the near eastside of Indianapolis, IN. Since 1985, this faith-based, inner-city ministry has operated with the mission to ``break the cycle of poverty on the near Eastside of Indianapolis by engaging and empowering the community to cultivate healthy children, strong families, and vibrant neighborhoods through a Christ-centered approach that meets the physical, emotional, spiritual, and academic needs of our neighbors.''

Shepherd Community Center serves the near Eastside of Indianapolis, where poverty rates in the area reach as high as 38.6 percent and 8 of 10 children rely on school as their primary source of food during the week. Shepherd provides hope and support to its neighbors through a unique and holistic approach Shepherd calls its Continuum of Care. The Continuum of Care is a full set of programs that allows Shepherd to be continuously engaged in the lives of neighborhood children, teens, and their parents. It is designed to help area families overcome the challenges they may be facing in all areas: physical, emotional, spiritual, and academic.

Shepherd's approach has consistently yielded positive results, and families in its programs have become stronger physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially. Shepherd's students also attain higher academic achievement. In an area where only 33 percent of entering freshmen graduate high school and only 75 percent of those who graduate go on to college, nearly 90 percent of Shepherd's seniors graduate and go on to college, job training, or the military.

Shepherd's history dates to the fall of 1984, when the Westside Church of the Nazarene sent a group of volunteers to Central Nazarene Church to serve a Thanksgiving meal. In February 1985, that simple meal blossomed into an organization: Central Nazarene Mission. A few years later, the name was changed to Shepherd Community Center. Reverend Dean Cowles was the founding director and served in that role for Shepherd's first 4 years. Reverend John Hay, Jr. served for the next few years. Following Hay's departure, Cowles returned and served yet another 4 years. After a few years of transition, Reverend Jay Height was named executive director in 1998 and continues to serve today.

And my friend Reverend Height has been a tireless champion for families on the near Eastside every day since then. In a 35th anniversary year when the COVID-19 pandemic compounded the challenges facing families in the area, Reverend Height and the Shepherd Community team met those challenges head on, and arm-in-arm with their neighbors. In a recent article in the Indianapolis Star, Reverend Height said, ``Hope is a precious commodity. When it's lost, the consequences for human life are devastating.''

I agree, Reverend Height. And I know the countless families of Indianapolis that Shepherd has served in its first 35 years are eternally grateful that Shepherd has been a custodian of hope for our capital city. On behalf of those families and the State of Indiana, I congratulate you on the 35th anniversary of Shepherd Community Center, I thank everyone who has worked and sacrificed in order to bless their neighborhoods through the work of Shepherd and wish the Shepherd Community Center all the best as it carries on that good and crucial work.

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