Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana spoke to partner pantry Shepherd’s Community Center about the role of faith-based partners, navigating emergency hunger levels among unhoused people in Indy’s 46201 zip code and how faith powers their every action.
Neighbors seeking food assistance throughout Gleaners’ service area will often find a faith-based organization could be their first stop. Whether at pantries tucked under the only steeple in town or full-scale drive-thru distributions, faith-based organizations shoulder the responsibility of providing the bulk of food to neighbors.
Tammy Kaufman lives in Indianapolis and recently took the first step to accessing charitable food. She picked up food at a drive-thru pantry that operates out of Shepherd Community Center’s parking lot. Though Kaufman grappled with initial hesitations, she not only found nutritious food that awaited her there, but she found community, care and a way forward through specialized wrap-around services.
Tammy Kaufman, who turned to Shepherd Center for food in a time of need, also found community, care, and a variety of wrap-around services.
“I’m doing the best I can, with their help. And, I love the people here,” Kaufman said. “I registered in a couple of their programs already.”
Connecting neighbors to nutritious food is often the start of a much longer conversation and relationship built at Shepherd Community Center, an organization that has been working to break the cycle of poverty for more than 40 years in Indianapolis. Every week, about 120 people are served at a Saturday onsite pantry and more than 225 people attend Friday mobile distributions.
“Food is kind of that door opener for us to make that connection with our neighbor and say, ‘Hey, what else is going on and how can we help?’” said Jason Courtney, who is the Chief of Staff at Shepherd Community Center.
That help can come in the form of childcare, education for children and adults, counseling, legal services and more. Shepherd Center began as a Thanksgiving dinner for unhoused people in Indianapolis but soon expanded to offer additional services to neighbors experiencing poverty and its conditions.
Since then, thousands of neighbors have received essential tools that can help them break the cycle of poverty. Decades of experience working with some of Indy’s poorest people reiterates to Shepherd staff a reality about poverty that Gleaners also knows to be true.
“We typically find that food is not the real issue. It’s a surface issue. But once you peel that layer back, and you start to get to know the neighbor, you find that core issue,” Courtney said.
The role that faith-based centers like Shepherd Center have in alleviating hunger levels throughout Gleaners 21-county service area cannot be understated. Our 2024 Impact Report found 73% of Gleaners network partner pantries operate out of faith-based organizations. In total, that means a staggering 26,666,667 meals were distributed by faith-based organizations.
These partners often identify specific community needs and leverage pre-existing ties, to give people easy access to resources that can make their lives more livable.
“Providing food isn’t a good business model — it’s expensive. I think you see faith-based organizations stepping up because our faith is driving us to love our neighbors and to help our neighbors when we can,” Courtney said.
In the case of Shepherd Center, a tight connection to the community means they can react to immediate needs of neighbors. Accurately identifying those needs affects every level of their operation and food distribution.
“We purposely chose Saturday for our pantry, because of the time. No other pantry was open on Saturday,” Courtney said.
Shepherd Center offers wrap-around services for neighbors.
Despite the wide range of support Shepherd Community is capable of providing to hundreds of community members of all ages, the center is seeing hunger levels rise. Their own food budget has gone up drastically. Even more alarming to staff and volunteers are the emergency levels of hunger seen among unhoused people in recent months.
“I would even go so far as to say malnourished, many of them. It’s pretty dire,” Courtney said. “Sometimes, we may be the only source of good food.”
While Shepherd Center works daily to break cycles, there is one that inevitably cannot be undone: the relationship between the center and people who find a way forward through their services.
“We have some staff members that grew up here and were part of Shepherd Community. We have several people who have come and gone, and we followed them through and even through college where we help them. We connect with them and stay connected with them through college years as well,” Courtney said.
Shepherd Center has immediate need for volunteers. If you’re interested in giving back, apply here.
