September Program Highlight

Program Highlight: When the River Rose, Neighbors Rose Higher

This month, we were supposed to be telling you about The GREAT Village Campout, our brand-new 24-hour celebration of Neighbors and nature planned for Teter Retreat & Organic Farm. On August 14, Hamilton County was hit by a 1-in-100-year flood event, and in the weeks since, SERVE Village made the call to cancel the Campout so our full capacity could go toward recovery. What happened in its place is a story worth telling, maybe more than the one we'd planned.

Not in the Plan, But Never Out of Reach

Flood relief wasn't a SERVE Village program before August 14. We didn't have a binder for it, a committee built around it, or a template ready to go. Within 24 hours, we stood up a mobilization and donation hub at the Hamilton County Fairgrounds anyway, because that's what an asset-based organization does: it doesn't wait for the perfect program to exist before connecting what Neighbors already have to what's needed.

What Neighbors already had turned out to be extraordinary. In the first weeks of response, over 2,000 Neighbors stepped forward to help; nearly 9 in 10 of them offered to sort and distribute supplies, more than two-thirds offered to cook or deliver meals for response teams, and over half signed up for the hands-and-knees work of house mucking and interior cleanup. Beyond people-power, Neighbors' own garages turned out to hold a small fleet of recovery equipment: 193 pressure washers, 75 trucks and trailers, 68 fans, 44 dehumidifiers, and 36 generators, alongside RNs, EMTs, Spanish and ASL interpreters, licensed contractors, and even a Girl Scout troop who showed up ready to work as a team.

This Is What Asset-Based Looks Like

At SERVE Village, we believe every neighborhood already holds what it needs to take care of itself, our job is just to help Neighbors see it and connect it. This is squarely an asset-rich response, not a needs-based one; the work has been matching gifts already on the table to the moments that need them, not recruiting from scratch.

"This will be a marathon race for us," said Patrick Propst, SERVE Village's Executive Director, early in the response. Recovery in Hamilton County will stretch on for months, and some families may take a year or more to reach a place of restoration. That's exactly why SERVE Village also stepped up to help lead the county's new Long-Term Recovery Group, ensuring the same neighbor-powered spirit that showed up in week one keeps showing up in month six.

Still Here, Still Showing Up

Recovery work continues, and it's shaped the rest of our fall calendar too, our September 20 White River Clean-up SERVE Day pivoted from a canoe-based event to a land-based one after flood damage at Conner Prairie. If you have a truck, a free afternoon, or just a willingness to check on the Neighbor down the street, there is still a place for you in this effort.

Have a flood-response story of your own, whether you gave help or received it? We'd love to hear it and celebrate it. Email us at info@servevillage.org or share it through our SERVE Village Google Form.

This September, Hamilton County didn't need a campout to prove what SERVE Village has always believed: when neighbors show up for neighbors, community becomes second nature, flood or no flood.