About Us

Shepherd Community is a faith-based, inner-city ministry that has operated on the near Eastside of Indianapolis since 1985. It was officially organized as Central Nazarene Mission, and was renamed Shepherd Community Center in 1988.

Shepherd Community Center works with neighborhood youth and their families "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 spiritual, physical, emotional, and academic needs of our neighbors."

A core set of programs make up a Continuum of Care, which is available to participants from birth through adulthood. The comprehensive services include emergency/basic services, preschool/early elementary, after-school and summer programming, college access programming, family relationship programming, and job training and placement assistance. Shepherd serves more than 500 families (1,000+ individuals) annually.

Shepherd has been serving these neighborhoods where hunger is common, education is lacking, and hope is in short supply for more than twenty-six years. Shepherd’s Continuum of Care has proven successful. In an area were only 33% of students are graduating high school, nearly 100% of Shepherd’s seniors graduated and go on to either higher education programs, job training, or the military. Many students are first-generation high-school graduates. There is also success among parents who are now leading small mentoring groups to change the lives of their neighbors and peers. The yearly successes at Shepherd include 15,000 meals served and higher GPAs among a majority of the students.

Shepherd instills positive behaviors in growing children because they will one day lead Indy’s eastside neighborhood to brighter beginnings. It is Shepherd’s practice to hold children to higher standards, to respect them and their families, to offer support, and to help them succeed in life. It is Shepherd’s goal to change this neighborhood by educating and empowering the second generation so that each child in it can change his or her life and the lives of their families.