>> Narrator: Up next, "Friends & Neighbors" celebrates those who help others in need.

>> Announcer: Quite simply, our mission is to deliver nutritious meals to individuals in the community with volunteer support.

We provide a service to someone who is in a position of nutritional need, regardless of their age.

Provide them that meal as well.

>> Narrator 1: Maybe somewhere down the road, God willing, we'll be serving sit down meals again, for now, we're doing our best we can and serving hot meals.

It's not just sandwiches, it's not just PB and J, doing our best to serve quality meal.

That's hopefully something of a blessing to the folks.

>> Narrator 2: Started back in 2004, we are a short term shelter that works with women and women with children to get them back on their feet, back connected with resources that they need so they can head to a stable housing situation.

>> Narrator 3: Over 40% of everyone who walks through our door in the past and currently are getting housed.

My truthful favorite part is knowing that people have a place that can help them.

>> Narrator 4: We feel like the pantry and what we're doing is really serving the people in need in that time of the most need.

>> Narrator 5: Centier Bank is proud to serve hometown community banking across Indiana.

For over 128 years, Indiana's Largest Private Family-Owned Bank has been not for sale and promises to keep it that way for years to come.

>> Narrator 6: Doing as much as you can, as quickly as you can is important to me.

Life is short and the earlier we get started helping our community, the better off our community will be.

(upbeat music) >> I have a very strong connection to other students.

Everyone makes an effort to help each other.

I'll remember the feeling of being here, the feeling that I was a part of a family.

>> Announcer: Ivy Tech offers more than 70 programs with locations in Michigan City, LaPorte and Valparaiso.

New classes start every few weeks.

Ivy Tech, higher education at the speed of life.

To get started, visit ivytech.edu.

>> Narrator 7: Family, home work, self of all the things you take care of, make sure you are near the top of the list.

NorthShore Health Centers offers many services to keep you balanced and healthy.

So take a moment, self-assess and put yourself first from medical to dental, vision, chiropractic and mental health NorthShore will help get you centered.

You help keep your world running, so make sure to take care of yourself.

NorthShore Health Centers, building a healthy community, one patient at a time.

>> Narrator 8: Additional support for LakeShore Public Media and local programming is made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you!

(upbeat music) >> Quite simply, our mission is to deliver nutritious meals to individuals in the community with volunteer support.

Primarily our services offered to somebody with a nutritional need.

So we serve ages 3 to 105.

We provide a service to someone who is in a position of nutritional need.

So whether you are older and you cook less, we can deliver those meals to your home.

Or if you are somebody who has been, you know, has had an accident, has a broken leg, and is home bound for a while, we can also, regardless of their age, provide them that meal as well.

We are more than just a meal distribution organization.

One of the other aspects that we feel very strongly about is that we also wanna be a community resource.

And so when individuals do call our client services, they might be calling to find how much meals would cost for my mother.

And as our trained client services, they have questions that they ask, and they find out a little bit more about what the situation might be and what other resources or referrals that we can help them with.

whether they need a food subsidy program or if they need home care or better services overall for what their certain situation might be.

(upbeat music) >> I've been in the food business for 40 years and I've learned a lot of scratch cooking.

They didn't do a whole lot of scratch cooking before I got here.

Important thing about making food from scratch is you have a lot more control of the ingredients that go into it and you can keep the sodium levels below what they need to be.

And the food tastes obviously a lot better.

What we try to do here is we try to keep everything no added salt, and then we counter that by using herbs and citrus and things like that to enhance the flavors as well.

Mashed potatoes, that was another thing that, you know, they were making instant mashed potatoes and everything like that.

So I started buying Yukon Golds and steaming them, mixing them in the mixer and, you know, just talk about night and day, you know, and people have really noticed the difference and hearing feedback from the drivers.

And then also people that call in to client services.

You know, they always email me and tell me this certain client really, really appreciates what you guys do.

Food tastes fantastic.

The the drivers are the best.

So, they would definitely show their appreciation.

It's one of those jobs that when you go home you feel like you really made a difference.

>> We have a core of about 460 some volunteers that help us with the food distribution.

Also with, we have a system of how our bags are coated.

They come in and help us prepare those bags that go with each meal.

They also help us make salads or package cold foods in the kitchen as well as we have office support.

Our volunteers are pretty much the life force.

They were powered by them.

They're wonderful because I have volunteers that have been with us maybe two weeks to 40 years.

We have a volunteer that just celebrated her 40th anniversary.

So, to me to know that somebody has that longevity, to give up their time freely makes a big difference in my investment, in working in meals almost.

>> It's different than working for a company and feeding stack-holders and board members.

We're helping people that live around us and making, like I said, making a difference in their life.

(upbeat music) >> This is St. Joseph's Catholic Church in downtown Hammond, 5,900 block of Holman Avenue.

We feed people Monday through Friday at a soup kitchen and we have approximately 60 to 70 people a day.

>> The meal's been here for almost 40 years, since the 80.

It's had a couple different permutations, but the kitchen has expanded to serve people more and better.

We have a pretty strong core of volunteers now.

We're always looking to add, to add more volunteers and we're always looking to make each meal better than yesterday.

We're here to serve and to grow and as a community and grow in the love, we show the people who come for meals.

We want the food they get to be evidence of our effort and our love and our desire for them to have a solid meal, have a solid day, have a better life.

We could give simple meals all the time, but that's not what we're here really to do.

We're here here to serve people as well, as many people as we can and serve them as well as we can.

Almost all the meat food we serve is donated.

And so there are different, a couple other, a couple gentlemen who go around markets, stores, food bank and bring us stuff that we can use.

Folks donate, you know, obviously cooking and cleaning.

They donate their time, organizing and getting donations for us.

Rhonda's been around for almost 20 years, that proves to new volunteers that this works and that this is valuable.

And if it can keep her and fulfill her and her husband coming back for 20 years, there must be something to it, that's valuable to us.

If we had those volunteers who came for two weeks and disappeared, that'd be one thing.

But Rhonda has really been devoted to us being, good neighbors to the folks here in Hammond and providing them the best.

We're capable of providing them with just a real testament and example to the value of what we're doing.

>> Brief, how we contribute to the program every month.

Our church purchases food to be given out to the local people.

My husband and I have been doing it since '05 and when he retired in '07, he came on board and the man of program is just a gift from God.

It's, you feel good in your heart and and it is work.

It is work trying to get ready for the meals and all, but it's worth it.

It's worth it because you feel good inside.

You feel like you've made a difference in these people's lives.

Even though we might know their first name, we don't always know a lot about them, but we never ask.

We never ask why they're in that line.

We just give them a smile and we pray for them because we could be in that line.

We could be standing in that line for someone to give us a meal.

We just love doing it and we thank God, we thank Saint Joe for having the program here.

We hope it lasts forever.

Long after we're dead and gone.

>> Since Covid, we still serve meals out, you know, to go meals maybe somewhere down the road, God willing, we'll be serving sit down meals again.

For now, we're doing our best we can and serving hot meals.

It's not just sandwiches, it's not just PB and J, doing our best to serve a quality meal.

That's hopefully something of a blessing to the folks who get it.

>> Gabriel's Horn started back in 2004.

We are a short-term shelter that works with women and women with children to get them back on their feet back connected with resources that they need so that they can head to a stable housing situation.

Our main purpose to provide shelter, we then connect the clients with the resources that already exist in the community.

Whether that be a job, transportation, childcare, if they have children.

The first part of it is getting acclimated to the community that's here.

Just kind of giving them that safe place where they can just be for a little bit, figure out what are the pieces I need to pick up.

And that's what we work on with them.

So we're connecting with the resources that are in the community that they'll stay with once they leave here.

And so then it's that work of what are the pieces that we put together that jigsaw puzzle to make them whole again so that they can be successful moving forward.

We've become accountability coaches for them.

You know, we help them get connected, but then we're the ones checking in with them, hey, did you make the appointment?

What do you need to be successful now that you have the pieces from this appointment that you've had?

And they start to become a community themselves.

But then they end up being advocates for each other.

And we see a number of our former clients who have moved on maybe to an apartment or a stable living situation who will come back and I'll see them show up and they'll be here to pick up somebody to get them transportation 'cause they don't have a car right now.

Or they'll come back and they'll help out, when we're doing a volunteer project here at the shelter.

When the ladies come in we get them connected with a job that's within walking distance of the shelter so they can start to make some money and then we work with them with budgeting and all that kind of stuff.

And then as they gain some money and they're ready to get to transportation, we've worked with some of the small or some of the dealerships around here and work on purchasing maybe a car that they wouldn't put on their lot but that they were gonna send to auction and we can get it for a lesser price.

And those are the partners that we connect with in the community.

'Cause again, the stuff like childcare, if they have kids, social work, all that kind, they're gonna need that beyond the six months that they're here.

I've been with Gabriel's Horn for a little over a year.

I was working in the community with another nonprofit and was brought on as an interim while they were looking for a replacement for an executive director that left.

And in the process of doing that interim position, kind of, sat down a position, you know, this is the place that I need to be.

I always been in positions where I've been trying to help people remove obstacles.

I used to be a public school educator and then retired from that.

And now since I've been in northwest Indiana, working in nonprofits where that's kind of the main goal is to remove the obstacles, give people the opportunity.

That's where my sweet spot is.

You know, everybody has their rhythm of where is a great place for them to work in.

For me, it's being in that realm where I can feel like I'm helping to remove obstacles for others.

The persons who comes in as usually shy, doesn't want engage, sometimes very standoffish, by the time they get to the end of the time that they're here.

In many cases, they've made people that they're friends with now and they're advocating for each other, will come in and they're making meals together.

They're, you know, somebody's like, oh, I didn't get a chance to get to the food pantry and stuff.

Wait, just go to my stuff and grab some stuff outta there.

It's working through that process that we're part of a community, so this becomes a microorganism of the community to hopefully get them engaged, once they leave.

The end of their success is not the moment they're spending with you.

And that's true for these clients that are here.

This is not the end for them.

This is just a moment in time.

And so how do we give them the resources?

How do we give them a hand up?

When I give them a hand out, and then we become that spot behind them and if they slip, we're there to help support them so that they can keep moving forward.

(whimsical music) >> This is the only emergency shelter located in LaPorte County.

And we are located physically in Michigan City, Indiana.

I took over this organization while I was still working a full-time day job and running it at night and there were things that we were missing when I took over in '16, we started and we got our 501c3.

The next year in '17 we started a women's program.

And so now we had two programs on a nightly basis, one for men and one for women and children.

And we rotated from church to church each night with those never in the same church with the same groups.

And after some talking, we were able to get the building as soon as it was zoned.

And we made that happen in the fall of 18, and at that point it was our building and we started fundraising and we settled on the name Nest because we believe that this is what we are.

This is a place for people to take refuge in.

This is a place for people to start their rebirth.

And so we're guiding them, we're teaching them, we're feeding them.

And with the hope that in the end they learn to fly.

This is why we call ourself Nest.

We're very proud of it.

So within four months we raised $400,000 to get this building up to code, bringing everything in that we needed to do to make a congregate living shelter.

And in 2020 we moved in.

We got new windows in this building, we got a dumb waiter put in this building.

So the food has made our one floor brought to the second floor.

So both floors can be fed a hot meal at the same time because we care about people and we want to help them, guide them through the situations that they're in.

(gentle music) >> The individuals coming in, we're meeting them where they are.

They're coming in with a lot of trauma, a lot of tribulations that are happening around them in their daily life.

We help them with programming.

They come in, we provide them with a safe place to be, safe place to lay their heads, get a good meal.

But also we provide them with programming.

We have a program called Flight School where we have client Flight Instructors, but it would be okay to say coaches who help them throughout each week, whether that it's a weekly goal and or you know, something that they may struggle with.

What we're here to help them in the best way possible.

We wanna reinstate them back into their society.

We are here for a guide, but we're here to also help them soar.

We talk about soaring.

Soaring is a program that we have.

So once they're out of the shelter done with the programming, once they're done, being able to get everything that they may need, healing themselves, those types of things.

We help them by advocating for when they are in a home, when they are housed.

So we have an individual who will go and just share time with them, spend time in those moments with them of, hey, do you need a helping hand?

Do you need help to the local food pantries, assistance with Nipsco, those types of things.

We wanna really make sure that they are still in the help with their community so they stay housed so they stayed healthy.

>> Over 40% of everyone who walks through our door in the past and currently are getting housed.

My truthful favorite part is knowing that people have a place that can help them.

Initially people are lost.

They don't know how to reconnect the pieces.

They don't know where to turn to , and I love the thought that they could come in here and get started and we can connect them.

We've seen people turn things around very quickly and we have a really good success rate of individuals who walk in the door and that make a success out of themselves.

(music continues) >> We feel like the pantry and what we're doing is really serving the people in need in that time of the most need.

I'm a nurse by trade and with my nursing license with our church, about four years ago, I went on a missions trip to Haiti where we served rural villages.

We just took care of their health needs, gave them physicals and vaccines, things like that.

And at the end of the trip we were so on fire and we were so excited with what we were doing overseas, but we talked about what can we do once we get home state side.

And I don't know where it came from, I think maybe it was just the Holy Spirit that said, "I want you to feed people."

So I came home and I told my husband that I wanted to start a food pantry.

I wanted to feed people.

And as he always does, he jumped right in and he said, great let's pray on it and let's figure out how, what it looks like.

So in January of 2019, we had about five families signed up.

Those were families that were on free and reduced lunch at our kids' school.

And we were packing bags full of groceries at our dining room table.

And we thought, this is great, we're really helping, we're really doing it.

And then the next year the Lord provided farmland and two years after that he provided more farmland.

And so now we serve 56 families every Friday and it's almost 220 people.

Some of our families have as many as nine people in them, and some of them are retired couples on a fixed income that are just the two of them.

So this is a 20 acre farm.

And since we obtained this farmland, we realized that we're able to produce fresh eggs, we're able to produce fresh poultry and beef and pork options for our families.

We also have 3000 linear feet of gardens that we're able to pull from and feed our families that we serve as well With that.

The way that I grew up was extremely poor.

Both of my parents were addicts and so when we ate food, it was from food pantries or churches, which is a wonderful thing.

But for the most part we would bring home boxes full of bags with dried beans or dried pastas, canned food, which are all fine, but they're high in sodium and they're not the healthiest choices.

So when we started this ministry, we wanted to make sure that we're giving families fresh options and healthy options.

The thinking behind the farm is just that we're gonna grow what we can.

Everything that's pulled from the garden goes straight to our families.

And that's where the name First Fruits comes from.

In the Old Testament of the Bible, the Lord talks about giving back what belongs to Him.

And so us giving away those very first crops, the very best of what we grow and produce, just shows God that we understand, that we believe his promise to continue providing for us.

So that's why we give away what we do.

When we first started, we were just packing bags of groceries.

So people would come and everybody got the same thing unless they had a food allergy.

Now that we've turned our giveaway into more of a free grocery store, we're seeing people really open up and start to talk.

It used to be that they would come up to the farm kind of halfway grab their bag and leave.

But as they're shopping now we're able to start conversation with them, which is sort of my heart.

I wanna talk to everyone, I wanna give 'em a hug, I wanna know their story, I wanna pray with them.

I wanna be involved in their life and help them feel seen and loved.

So the having the furry grocery store set up is a beautiful way for them to just come in and say, oh my word, this is my favorite thing.

Or you know, do you have a different type or what else can I do with this item?

So it's just a great way to start conversation.

I love when first time families come in.

A lot of times they'll come and say, am I only allowed to come once?

You know, how much can I have?

Is it okay for me to take this?

There are some local food pantries that our families can't shop in except for one time because they're not within city limits per say.

So I had one mom come in and she was crying and she said, "I just got turned away from two food banks, so I'm kind of nervous to come today because I came last week and asked you for food."

And I told her, I said, come in, you're welcome.

Every single to take what you need.

And just seeing that heavy weight lifted off of her, she just said, my kids appreciate it so much.

So it's really nice just to see that we're helping even in a small way to make sure that their needs are met.

Even throughout the weekend.

Growing up, all I wanted was to look like every other kid.

I knew I was dirty, I knew I was hungry and smelly and different.

But when you're young you can't do anything to change it.

So those types of programs like our Back to School program where we make sure each kid has a brand new backpack and a new pair of shoes and that backpack is full of supplies so they walk in those doors like every other kid.

That to me is the most beneficial.

It's just seeing those children, they're feeling that love and they're feeling cared for because their needs are being met.

Even just a few needs.

We're hoping to see people that are in need that they know that they have a place that they can go and get the things that they need.

But then we're able to rejoice with them when they're back to work or when a single mom graduates college and she's got a full-time job and we're also seeing some people that have been on our list, they'll come back and either donate when they have plenty or they'll come back and donate their time or they simply pray with us or spread the word.

So we're seeing this cycle of, "Hey, I was there and you helped me.

I'd like you to help my friend, or I'd like to come back and help you guys."

>> Narrator 5: Centier Bank is proud to serve Hometown Community banking across Indiana for over 128 years.

Indiana's Largest Private Family-Owned Bank has been not for sale and promises to keep it that way for years to come.

>> Narrator 6: Doing as much as you can, as quickly as you can is important to me.

Life is short and the earlier we get started helping our community, the better off our community will be.

>> Almost every single professor I've had, I'm on a first name basis.

By building that relationship with faculty, I was able to get involved with research.

It's one thing to read about an idea and a book versus physically doing it and seeing the results.

>> Announcer: Ivy Tech offers more than 70 programs with locations in Michigan City, La Porte and Valparaiso.

New classes start every few weeks.

Ivy Tech, higher education at the speed of life.

To get started visit ivytech.edu.

The Crossroads Chamber is transforming northwest Indiana's business landscape, one connection at a time.

Experience the power of networking within our diverse community and forge lasting relationships that can drive your business forward, >> Narrator 7: Family, home, work, self of all the things you take care of, make sure you are near the top of the list.

NorthShore Health Centers offers many services to keep you balanced and healthy.

So take a moment, self-assess and put yourself first from medical to dental, vision, chiropractic and mental health, NorthShore will help get you centered.

You help keep your world running.

So make sure to take care of yourself.

NorthShore Health Centers, building a healthy community, one patient at a time.

>> Narrator 8: Additional support for LakeShore Public Media and local programming is made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you!.

(upbeat music) (gentle music)