INDIANAPOLIS — A $30 million Promise Neighborhood grant will boost two east side neighborhoods in the coming years, providing funds for support and revitalization.
The grant will support the IndyEast Promise neighborhoods, Near Eastside and Martindale Brightwood neighborhoods, through 2026. Indianapolis is one of only seven cities awarded the grant.
Promise Neighborhoods are federally designated areas that receive special attention to address issues of poverty and lack of opportunity. In Indianapolis, this place-based approach, focuses on addressing generational family and community poverty by ensuring the availability of quality educational opportunities and providing a range of wrap-around supports for youths, families and communities, according to Indianapolis Public Schools.
The five-year project includes a variety of community partners that will work together to ensure its success. Those partners include the John Boner Neighborhood Centers, the City of Indianapolis, Children’s Bureau/Families First of Indiana, Edna Martin Christian Center, EmployIndy. Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS), Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis, The Mind Trust, and the United Way of Central Indiana.
Partners will meet regularly over the next six months to work out details of the multi-year plan.
Six of the seven schools that will benefit from the grant are IPS schools.
Schools participating in the project are:
• Thomas Gregg Neighborhood School
• James Russell Lowell School 51
• Brookside School 54
• Paramount School of Excellence
• KIPP Indy College Prep Middle School
• Harshman Middle School
• Arsenal Technical High School
James Taylor, chief executive officer of the John Boner Neighborhood Centers, which will lead the project, believes the award of federal funding to Indianapolis is a recognition of the transformation that has been and is occurring in IPS and how these community organizations are aligning around the educational success of children.