Making a difference right here in Elkhart County
These stories appear in our recent annual reports and provide a more complete story to the generosity of our community.
The Most Important Things
The visitation room at the correctional facility looked like an elementary school cafeteria that hadn’t been updated since 1974. The walls were taupe but for two bold roller-rink stripes of maroon and blue. The tiled floor was patterned to make the room feel busier than it already was. Vinyl furniture was arranged around the room, creating faux privacy for families and loved ones. If not for the heavyset guards at the north end of the room and the steel-reinforced, bullet-proof Plexiglas, you might feel like you were at a support group meeting in a church basement as much as a Read More »
Finding Amanda’s Legacy
How do you recover from the unexpected death of a child, your daughter? Even more tragic, the brutal murder of your daughter? This is what Phil and Robin Byars and their family have been trying to cope with the past many painful months. On the morning of November 10, 2015 their son-in-law Davey Blackburn went to a gym to work out. Upon returning to their Indianapolis home, he found his wife, Amanda Byars Blackburn, 28, suffering from gunshot wounds after a home invasion. Amanda was 12 weeks pregnant with their second child, a daughter, and both died 24 hours later Read More »
Let home extend well beyond the property line.
When we think of home, our definition is contextual. It depends on where we are and what we are doing. As we sit on our couch and settle in for a Notre Dame football game, home means that couch and that TV. Home for me is Wendy and I with our kids. As we go to our respective workplaces and schools, home becomes Lusher Ave. or Rivercreek or Bridlewood. It becomes our neighborhoods and our neighbors. As we travel to play a rival team, home becomes Elkhart, Northwood, Goshen, Northridge, Jimtown or Concord. It becomes our respective cities. And when Read More »
Finding High Ground in the Storm
How Walnut Hill provides stability to a community in need. It’s 6:40 on a Monday morning and the Bergholz’s home is already in full motion. Sarah’s hair, still dripping from her shower, leaves an imprint, growing on her maroon scrubs top. Someone takes excessively long steams in the morning before she gets up, despite her constant refrain to stop. Her broken, green Revlon pressed powder compact has seen better days, but she applies it conservatively to both cheeks and lightly taps the tip of her nose. David squeezes behind her and makes his way to the opposite end of the Read More »
So Splendid a Playhouse
Click. Click. Click. her Vintage Ferragamo’s, Studded And Black, Clack Across The Empty Stage. Maple Boards Creak Intermittently, Each Filled With Memories Of The Thousands Of Footsteps That Have Come Before. As she slowly edges across the floor, she’s careful to feel each board, she’s careful to feel each imperfection, the result of generations of previous acts. The subtle bend under her foot bounces back with a pulse of history she swears she can feel. The theater is dark. Lights off, her mind is left to fill in the details, to soften the imperfections. The glow from the emergency exit Read More »
Be Nice to Each Other Out There
The story of Matt Dibley’s legacy living on. It was an unseasonably warm day in March. Folks in and around Elkhart County went about their days as usual. Among them was Heather Streiter, then a 17-year-old getting ready for her day at Concord High School. She set down her straightener on her marble Jack-and-Jill vanity she shared with her sister Meghan, rushed to pile her things together, nabbed her bag from the table, and flung the door open. Her Honda Civic carted her down the same old streets. She used the time as she normally did to think about typical high Read More »
The Most Important Things
Faith takes acts to a new level for Ola Yoder as he works and leads in Elkhart County.
STORIES OF
IMPACT
Read our most recent Stories of Impact in our latest annual report (PDF).
