Nobody Paid Attention to This Neighborhood Until Things Changed

Sharon Clark: If you have vision, you can turn vision into velocity. Taking off and launching.

Nate Spangle: We might need to put that on the shirt. Vision into velocity.

Sharon Clark: People ask me things all the time. They say, why do you do this? And I just simply say, why not?

Nate Spangle: Why not?

Sharon Clark: Why not

Nate Spangle: a great leader to be in that space, you know, show them and they start to discover it on their own.

Then that's where the magic goes. Yeah. It's making a big impact in this Near Northwest Indy neighborhood. Where do you see the next five or 10 years going? From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between. This is Get IN, the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here today.

I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. Hey there. Before we jump into today's episode, I wanna take a minute to thank the folks that made this Nonprofit Spotlight series Possible Elements Financial as a credit union. They're a not-for-profit financial institution.

Built on the idea of empowering individuals to achieve financial success and they've been doing just that for 95 years, starting right here in Indiana. Now they're based in India and proud to support Hoosiers, but their reach goes way beyond state lines. They don't just talk about impact. They live IT Elements teaches more than 1,000 financial wellness classes annually.

They pay their employees to volunteer and they donate 1% of net profits to causes that improve lives. So yeah, it made perfect sense for them to back this series because when it comes to supporting people doing good elements cares, learn more at elements.org/getin. That's elements.org/getin and use code getin Elements Financial, like a bank only better federally insured by NCUA.

Now let's get into this special nonprofit spotlight episode presented by Elements Financial. My guest today is Sharon Clark, and she's a social entrepreneur and community leader dedicated to revitalizing Indianapolis Near Northwest Neighborhood through development and community programming. After an acclaimed 30-season collegiate volleyball coaching career, highlighted as the all-time wins leader at Butler University with 368 incredible.

She transitioned to nonprofit leadership in 2023. As the founder of the Aspire Higher Foundation, Sharon has transformed a historic firehouse into a vibrant community hub. She's also joined by Marvin Smith, who is a board member for Aspire Higher. I'm really excited to dive into. First off, your transition from, I mean, an incredible coaching career.

368 wins 23 seasons with Butler, I believe.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Seven Seasons with over 20 wins. Like she's got a lot of great players there, of course, but an incredible coaching career. Your transition in 2023 to two being a nonprofit leader and this mission that you guys have built to really pour into the Near Northwest side of Indianapolis.

Y'all welcome to the show.

Sharon Clark: Thank you, Nate, and we're excited to be here.

Nate Spangle: I, I am very, very excited. One, I mean, we have been hanging out for 10 minutes, getting ready to press record. I've already learned so much about what the Near Northwest side of Indianapolis is, and I'm really excited to share that with everyone as we get there.

But before we dive into the nitty gritty of the Near Northwest side. I wanna talk about what sparked your transition after a 30 plus year career in coaching to dive into nonprofit leadership and, and start the Aspire Higher Foundation.

Sharon Clark: The work that we do now, uh, my husband and I, Tim Clark, we've always done that work just on a much smaller scale.

Um. Our backgrounds, our families where we grew up. He's from New York and Georgia and I'm from California. Um, we've always just been in the space of if you can help someone, help him up.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: So that's how it started for us. Um, coaching and being in athletics and being in a former college athlete. Really, really, really helps me every day with what I do and I never thought that.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. Where were you from originally?

Sharon Clark: I'm from California. Originally.

Nate Spangle: From California? Yeah. How did you end up in Indianapolis?

Sharon Clark: I ended up here, you know, chasing love, following my husband.

Nate Spangle: There we go. Yes

Sharon Clark: sir. Who was working for the NCAA in Kansas City, and then when they made the move here,

Nate Spangle: yeah.

Sharon Clark: He's like, Hey, let's go to Indy.

I was like, yeah, no,

Nate Spangle: like, oh boy. And then in 23 years, or 23 seasons at Butler later.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: You're like, we're all in on Indy.

Sharon Clark: He was right. He was right.

Nate Spangle: Best

Sharon Clark: move ever.

Nate Spangle: There we go. Now we're talking. So you're coaching at Butler, you know, you're, I mean, doing, I would say from the outside looking in, pretty solid, you know, winning a ton of game.

The all time wins leader at Butler, correct?

Sharon Clark: Correct.

Nate Spangle: Uh, I mean, that's so cool. 368 is a ton of wins to get, but somewhere during there you took this, you know. Innate passion, this thing that you had always been doing, helping other people, and you turned it into, uh, a little more of an organized movement with Aspire Higher.

Take us through what led this to hanging up the whistle and the clipboard in 2023 and diving headfirst into an organized nonprofit and, and how you identified the need that the Near Northwest side of Indianapolis had.

Sharon Clark: Yeah, it was really a very organic situation. Um, my husband and I, both being former coaches, um, we always were doing free clinics for kids, you know, trying to get them opportunities and, and that's how everything really started.

Um, we, I mean, the Near Northwest is very close to Butler, so it was, it was easy and simple and it was a community that had a lot of great needs. Um, I think what really made that catapult in that transition was one of my former student assistants, uh, who worked with my volleyball team. Ryan was an attorney at Ice Miller at the time, and he actually ended up being my husband's, uh, my husband works for Simon Youth Foundation.

He was, uh, the attorney working with that group and he's like, Hey, I saw Ryan, blah blah. Told him what you're doing. Da da da da. And then next thing I know, he's talking me into,

Nate Spangle: when you say what you were, when you say what you were doing, yeah. Like what were the, the X's and o's, the things that you were doing in the Near Northwest neighborhood.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. So at that point, what we were doing is we were just providing, um, resources to families and we were doing lots of exposure things for kids. So we were doing sports camps, clinics, we were doing, um, digital stuff, helping people, you know, work with technology. Just a lot of little one-off opportunities, um, that we thought would help them.

We were working with some of the schools at that point in that community and just really bringing resources from everywhere. Yeah. From the NCAA, from Butler, lots of things like that.

Nate Spangle: For those that don't know, can you outline what the Near Northwest neighborhood of Indianapolis is?

Sharon Clark: Yeah, so it's a, it's a wonderful community just northwest of downtown, right?

So we kind of border 16th Street on the south, 38th Street on the north, and then I-65 to the east, and then we go all the way to, um, just past the White River on the other side of, um, Riverside Park. So it's, it's a big. Big area there, and we've got eight neighborhoods in that.

Nate Spangle: So this is, yeah. Riverside Park.

Sharon Clark: Yep.

Nate Spangle: Is it over, like, is it technically Marion or No? Yep. Okay. Of it. So even across the river too?

Sharon Clark: Across the river, yes.

Nate Spangle: Okay. Yes. All the way up to south of,

Sharon Clark: almost to like Lafayette Road.

Nate Spangle: Yep.

Sharon Clark: Like over there. Yeah. So we go all the way over there.

Nate Spangle: Oh yeah. Yeah. And then south of Newfields, like 38th Street. Is that, is that the north border?

Sharon Clark: That is our northern border.

Nate Spangle: Okay. I'm following along. So like what would be the, if people have ever like probably driven through there, you think of like that ex the 65 where like curves out

Sharon Clark: every time you go. I-65. You're going right by the neighborhood.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. Okay. And how did you, was it just strictly out of convenience with Butler of how you got connected to this neighborhood?

Like, oh, it's close and they, they, there's a, a need there?

Sharon Clark: No, it was the firehouse. Okay. So be a firehouse. This 1897 firehouse. Um, when I first, when we first moved here, I was looking for a space for, um, to do some. Some, uh, community development stuff and some work and we just didn't have a space.

Nate Spangle: Yeah,

Sharon Clark: so the firehouse on 16th and Carrollton was the one that I really wanted, and someone had.Gotten that and, uh, turned it into a home. And so we happened to see this one just randomly. And I'll, I'll be honest with you, it was kind of an accident. Um, when I first moved to Indianapolis on Sundays, I used to go to Indiana Landmarks and look at all these. Things. That's how I found it, and that's how I learned my way around the state of Indiana.

Like I drive to the 10 most endangered.

Nate Spangle: This

Sharon Clark: is like,

Nate Spangle: this is a, a constant threat. In the last month, I've had four different guests where we've talked about Indiana Landmarks.

Sharon Clark: Oh yeah.

Nate Spangle: And like the, the little auction site too. And the 10 most endangered spot.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: It's

Sharon Clark: so cool. Yeah. That's how I learned my way

Nate Spangle: around

Sharon Clark: the state.

Nate Spangle: I, I love India. It was great. Landmarks was great, but I didn't know about it before, maybe like two months ago. And now I'm like always on it taken out, like,

Sharon Clark: yeah,

Nate Spangle: I mean, for $3,000 you can buy an old school house. Right. People are probably like tired of me talking about this, but it's so cool. It's

Sharon Clark: great.

Nate Spangle: So you would go to the 10, like

Sharon Clark: I would Wow. And I found all these amazing little towns and cool places and spaces.

Nate Spangle: Well, are there any of those, uh, trips that you went on or places that you visited that really still resonate with you, even if you couldn't like pour in that's funny and help, uh,

Sharon Clark: save

Nate Spangle: the space?

Sharon Clark: Yeah, I would say there were these. I think it's the Medora brick kilns or something like

Nate Spangle: in Medora.

Sharon Clark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. And I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I mean, from the west coast, we don't have a ton of brick going on out there, so to see where, uh, bricks were actually made and all that kind of stuff, but it was just a really cool space.

Nate Spangle: Like Yeah. This

Sharon Clark: the

Nate Spangle: Medora Brick Plant.

Sharon Clark: Yes.

Nate Spangle: And, and then Medora Iss a really interesting town, just in general.

Sharon Clark: Mm, it

Nate Spangle: is.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Definitely. I think the architecture and I, I'm an architecture buff. Like I, I love architecture, so I thought that was amazing.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. That is. So, and like kudos to you for moving to a new place.

You're like. I mean, did you know anyone from Indiana? No. No. And you're just like, Hey, you discover Indiana Landmarks and you start to go out and visit places?

Sharon Clark: Yeah. Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Wow. That's really cool. And so through that, you discovered the firehouse.

Sharon Clark: Correct. That's how, that's the first time I ever saw that firehouse.

Nate Spangle: Okay.

Sharon Clark: They were

Nate Spangle: featuring

Sharon Clark: it, which is

Nate Spangle: the firehouse. What's the, the general address of it?

Sharon Clark: So it's, it's 1002 Udell, it's on the corner of Udell and Rader Street.

Nate Spangle: Okay.

Sharon Clark: And it originally was, uh, Firehouse No. 9, and then it became 23.

Nate Spangle: Mm-hmm.

Sharon Clark: So, oh,

Nate Spangle: okay.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. So it's got a great history.

Nate Spangle: And so you found this on Indiana Landmarks and you're just like, we need to do something with this.

Sharon Clark: I was like, yeah, we should get it. And my husband's like, no. Um, but somebody owned it, privately owned it, and then,

Nate Spangle: okay. So it was owned by a private individual? Yep. It owned. So you had to like, and was it just like run down?

Sharon Clark: It was falling apart. I mean, roof was leaking. It was, yeah. Yeah. What was their plan to do with It was to demolition, but the city was not.

Like, look to rehab.

Nate Spangle: So how do you, how do you bring this to life and end up ga gaining possession of the firehouse?

Sharon Clark: Someone said, Hey, you gotta go to the tax sale. I think that firehouse is in the tax sale. And I'm like, what? I've never done that. So I went, no.

Nate Spangle: Like a live auctioneer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No way.

Sharon Clark: I had no idea what I was doing.

Nate Spangle: Wait, so there's a tax sale. Yeah. And you go there and you get like a little number and you're, you

Sharon Clark: get the paddle

Nate Spangle: and you're bidding on a firehouse.

Sharon Clark: And I kept like putting my paddle up and I didn't know what I was doing. And then I went home that night and I was like, oh yeah, by the way, we, we have

Nate Spangle: a fire.

Did you have to like, okay, so a couple questions about like, actually like did have to like. I don't know, like show that you have, like how do you pay for a firehouse?

Sharon Clark: You know? So you do like, you have to, you know, pre-fill out all the stuff

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: With the Marion County Treasurer's Office. Okay. And then do all that.

And then that's how you get your bidding paddle. Who,

Nate Spangle: who were you bidding against?

Sharon Clark: I don't know. Like there's like, there's like all these serious people. Like they were totally into it and like people with briefcases and, you know, this was, this was years ago.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. When

Nate Spangle: did you get it?

Sharon Clark: Uh, 2012.

Nate Spangle: Oh, so you've had it for a minute?

Sharon Clark: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we bought it sight unseen and then we broke into it. 'cause there's no key. And then we were like totally overwhelmed.

Nate Spangle: Wait, you bought it sight unseen. Like you

Sharon Clark: were just I mean, you couldn't go in it. Oh, you couldn't view it. Like, we could only see it from the outside.

Nate Spangle: The fact that you're just like, yeah, let's do it.

Like, you, like have like a number in your mind and it's like you start to get close to it and then like, yeah. Your briefcase enemy is like, oh no, we want that firehouse.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. Okay. So then you get the keys. You own this firehouse and what do you Or no keys. Sorry.

Sharon Clark: No keys.

Nate Spangle: You,

Sharon Clark: we,

Nate Spangle: we get like the deed something,

Sharon Clark: we busted it open.

Yep, yep.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. Okay. I'm the owner. And,

Sharon Clark: and then we went inside and it was stuffed full for three floors. What? There's like four cars in there. Forklift. It took us two and a half years. Two empty the, the building.

Nate Spangle: And your husband, how was he feeling about owning the firehouse?

Sharon Clark: He's like, what are we doing?

Nate Spangle: How far was it

Sharon Clark: from where he and we're gonna work every single day. Um, it's about 15 minutes. I mean, we're, we're up at Traders Point.

Nate Spangle: Okay. So, so it'd be like, you could get down to Butler and then.

Sharon Clark: I would drive by there all the time. Like after work check, like after practice? Yeah. I'd just cruise through there.

But that's how I got to know the neighborhood.

Nate Spangle: Okay.

Sharon Clark: That's literally how I got to know the neighborhood.

Nate Spangle: So would you ever be like working and neighbors would stop by and ask like, what are you doing?

Sharon Clark: Oh, every time if you do that now they all stop by. They're like, it looks good. And my uncle used to be a firefighter there and stuff.

Like,

Nate Spangle: no way. Yeah,

Sharon Clark: yeah, yeah.

Nate Spangle: And it's, I mean, they're like, what are you doing? They're like, I'm not really sure. Like, but we have the firehouse. Okay. So it took two and a half years to clean it out. Just out. What was it the most random thing you found in there?

Sharon Clark: Uh, the greatest little gem we found was a classic Mustang.

Mean, it was in parts though. It was totally in parts.

Nate Spangle: But like,

Sharon Clark: and I'll have to say that Marvin, uh, our board member, he was one of what we call the early firehouse pioneers. Like we used to call our friends like, yeah, what are you doing this weekend? And they'd have come over and help

Nate Spangle: us. Yeah. How did you two get connected?

Marvin Smith: Being Butler Bulldog coming to check the games out? Yeah. Uh, Sharon was an amazing coach. She won't say it, but she was absolutely an amazing coach.

Nate Spangle: Where Marvin, where are you? From?

Marvin Smith: Kentucky.

Nate Spangle: From

Marvin Smith: Kentucky. And

Nate Spangle: then you came up to Butler?

Marvin Smith: Uh, no, uh, originally from Kentucky. Moved in Fort Middle School, seventh grade, been here ever since.

Uh, went to North Central. Yeah. Graduated. Ivy Tech, IUPUI.

Nate Spangle: Heck yeah.

Marvin Smith: Been in Indiana. Haven't left so slowly becoming a Hoosier. That's what I say.

Nate Spangle: Amen. Right. And so you got involved with Butler volleyball, like being a fan?

Marvin Smith: Yes.

Nate Spangle: And then you guys got connected and you started helping out on the firehouse?

Marvin Smith: No, so I had a auto repair business and, um.

Mr. Clark needed his, uh, suburban fix and I had a auto repair business and just helped out. Yeah. I was just, um, anybody that had any type of skills, uh, Mr. And Mr. Clark, they have an amazing heart. So when they ask you to do something, you're gonna do it. You can't tell them no. So, um, just come and advise it.

And I was like, I think that's a, I was like, that's not a Mustang. I said, I think that's a classic. And I was looking at it, I was like, that's worth some money.

Nate Spangle: No way.

Marvin Smith: Absolutely.

Sharon Clark: That's how we got the first Windows done on the building.

Nate Spangle: You sold the Mustang?

Sharon Clark: Sold it and got the windows. Wait,

Nate Spangle: did you have to put it together?

Sharon Clark: Uh, or did you

Nate Spangle: sell the parts?

Sharon Clark: No, we, we sold the, the car was somewhat intact, but we had to dig through everything to find the other parts,

Nate Spangle: kind of

Sharon Clark: engine. Engine. Because engine, like the serious, like Mustang people are like, we need this, we need that.

Nate Spangle: No way.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. We had no idea what

Nate Spangle: we were

Sharon Clark: doing.

Nate Spangle: So you, you uncover a classic Mustang.

Yeah. In this a band like the basically abandoned firehouse. That's a pretty cool find. Anything else that sticks out in that's memorable for you?

Sharon Clark: I think it was the first athletic club on the circle.

Nate Spangle: Yeah,

Sharon Clark: all of the weights and everything else were upstairs in a room. Like all this athletic stuff that were, I mean, there was a, a shoe company.

I mean, I don't know who was collecting and putting all that in there, but it was all in there, so

Nate Spangle: That's wild.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: So two and a half years. So when you finally get it cleaned out, then what do you start to do and, and while you're formulating your plan, like what was the plan for the space?

Sharon Clark: So initially the plan was, um, arts, art, space, art, studio space.

Nate Spangle: Why art? You're a sports person.

Sharon Clark: I'm a sports person who does art. Right. Really? So, yeah. What

Nate Spangle: kind of art do you do?

Sharon Clark: I do, I repurpose furniture, do home interior, stuff like

Nate Spangle: that. Yeah.

Sharon Clark: So that's kinda my lane. And I thought, oh, this would be a cool space for other, you know, other people to, to, to do their stuff.

Nate Spangle: So you wanted to make like a community art hub?

Sharon Clark: I did. Okay. Absolutely. That was, that was the goal. It was a long range goal. It was like, oh, you know, long after, you know, when I retire this

Nate Spangle: and like, worst case scenario, you have a space where you can do your art.

Sharon Clark: Yeah,

Nate Spangle: absolute. Absolutely. You know, like you have a, a cool old and your art is kind of the space as well.

Like it's just like a giant It is restoration project.

Sharon Clark: Yeah, it is. Wow. The, the transition for me really was when we were over there working all the time, pe the neighborhood would come by and say, Hey, you know, this would be this, or this is what it used to be, or this is what happened. And there was just a light bulb moment for me and I'm like.

Okay. This building is way bigger than us. Yeah. And we need to restore it, get it back, make it useful, and give it back to this community.

Nate Spangle: How do you balance your vision for what you think it should be with what the community wants it to be slash needs it to be?

Sharon Clark: I learned a long time ago to listen more than I talk.

Right. And so, you know, through coaching, you know, you're, you're always trying to hear and understand your athletes, your assistants, the fans, like everybody. Right? You're trying to interpret for everybody. And so that transitioned with me and I really wanted to not do things for the community, but do it with them.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: And that, I think that that's critical in community development. Yeah. You know, you really have to be in that space of, um, I'm not gonna tell you what you need. Yeah. I'm gonna listen and then I'm gonna help you get to where you wanna be.

Nate Spangle: So did owning this firehouse then lead you to do more of a like.

Uh, like athletic camps or other like programming, like kind of within the neighborhood.

Sharon Clark: It gave us a space to really do our programming. So like we do, uh, girls in Tech program, it's really robust. It's a really great program. We do everything from AI to cybersecurity to That's cool. All types of things come.

What, what high

Nate Spangle: school, what high school would most of the people in the neighborhood be going to?

Sharon Clark: Um, a large portion of them go to Herron-Riverside High School.

Nate Spangle: The Argonauts.

Sharon Clark: Yep. Believe Circle City.

Nate Spangle: It's like Attucks in that. Oh

Sharon Clark: yeah. General area. Crispus Attucks at stuff. Definitely.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. Okay. Interesting.

So when did this space get to a point where you could bring someone in?

Sharon Clark: We did a grand opening when we completely redid it. Um, and that was February of 24.

Nate Spangle: That's 12 years. Yeah. That's a dozen years. Mm-hmm. From when you acquired

Sharon Clark: it place,

Nate Spangle: it's so like for 12 years, were you just like slowly chipping away at working on it?

Sharon Clark: No. What, what happened was when we, a long time got it took, yeah, it took a long time. We first got it. It was overwhelming. Yeah. The amount of work and everything. So we literally locked it up and then like years later, like six years later, like a community development person over there called me and was like.

Hey, what are you doing with the firehouse? Like, are you gonna do something or not? And I was like, yeah.

Nate Spangle: How long, so did you not clean it out either? Immediately?

Sharon Clark: No,

Nate Spangle: we did not. Not So you had it had and you were like, one, can I set it on the shelf like one day I'm gonna do something with this? Yes. When did you really put the rubber to the road to start

Sharon Clark: working on?

We really started heavy in about 2017. Okay. But it was, it, it was weekends, holidays, whatever. Because my husband and I were both still working and traveling for work. Like I was on the road all the time recruiting, all that kind of stuff.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: So 2000 and um, 19 is when we got serious, got a, um, architect and started doing drawings and all that so we could get the actual cost.

And $1.6 million later,

Nate Spangle: 1.6 million. Yeah. I mean, you talk about it first off being chock full three stories high. Yeah. Like that's overwhelming. And then when you get the budget back and you're like 1.6 million, like,

Sharon Clark: yeah.

Nate Spangle: So then what. Did you have a nonprofit attached to it at that point? Or like how did you start to then put that together to bring this project to life?

Sharon Clark: So we didn't know it was gonna cost that much. We started heavily right before COVID and then COVID hit. And so our budget then jumped after we were able to go back and start the build out. Um, but in the meantime, what it did do for us gave us more time to really be intentional. Yeah. Like we, we added a commercial kitchen 'cause we're in the number two food desert in the city and we knew that we had to produce some type of food or be able to help people get help, food options.

There's no grocery store, there's no full service, um, grocery store in our area. So those are some of the things that it really gave us time to do.

Nate Spangle: Who were you going to, to like raise the money to bring this to life?

Sharon Clark: Yeah. So I had no idea where to go, so I, I went. Where I went, which is to people that I knew.

And, um, in the long run, we ended up with some really great board members.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: Um, who were friends and people who have always supported us. Some of them who are still on our board today, which I'm thrilled. Um, but they got us connected to some organizations and some people who could help.

Nate Spangle: What was the original mission like when you, you're going out there and you probably have like a slide deck or something and you're like, I mean, you probably need something a little more robust then.

We finished the old firehouse. Yeah. Yeah. Like please we're a little bit over our skis

Sharon Clark: on this. Yeah. I mean, by that point the foundation had really started forming itself and we had our four pillars. So we had our direction. Right. Okay.

Nate Spangle: Four pillars.

Sharon Clark: Four pillars. Community development. Yes. Right. So help rebuild.

And

Nate Spangle: specifically two Near Northwest or just in general?

Sharon Clark: Specific to the Near Northwest. Yeah. Like our community. 'cause it, it's the most needy of

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: Of the spaces that we're in. Right. Yeah. Um, so that, that's a, that's a big pillar. 'cause there's a lot of vacancy, a lot of empty, lots boarded up houses, we've gotta do that.

Mm-hmm. And then health and wellness, right? So we built the, you know, commercial kitchen in help produce food. We have five gardens, community gardens, so some of them we just grow and people walk up and take what they need. Right.

Nate Spangle: That's cool.

Sharon Clark: So those types of things, the health and wellness. It obviously very important to two old coaches, right?

Absolutely. Um, but adding the, the, you know, fitness opportunities for our senior citizens and all those types of things just became really, really critical. Um mm-hmm. Because the infrastructure was not there for them to be able to do that Right. Then technology. So it, it, it was a choice for us to really drive technology in to those who least have access to it.

And those are older Americans, um, who struggle with tech the most. But the bigger part is that career exposure and all of the educational part we do, we do that, um, very specifically with, with young girls.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: To just get going. Yes. Yeah,

Nate Spangle: because that's, that's interesting. Me, I'm from like a small town in rural northern Indiana, and I always talk about this like.

I didn't know anyone who knew anyone that hosted a podcast. Right. I didn't know anyone who knew anyone that worked in tech. It was like your, your choices were like realtor work in the factory or maybe be an accountant for the, for like in the front office of the factory. That was the same

Marvin Smith: for me.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. I mean, coming from, I'm sure like parts of Kentucky, yeah.

Marvin Smith: You could work in the coal mines or you could work in the chicken plant. That's all you had.

Nate Spangle: And like one out of every a hundred people got like a, a like a collared shirt job. Mm-hmm. Like in the front of like, you know what I'm saying? Um, yeah. I just said like a thousand times. But, but exposure when you were a kid to these.

Potential career paths.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Even if it's not the right one and you find out you hate stem, at least you know that's an option.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. Well, one of the things that's been great for us is, um, you know, our, our, the folks who support us have been really great at understanding the vision, right? So we bring kids in, we're doing a lot of programming, but then we also travel them, right?

Mm-hmm. 'cause we've got kids who've never been off the west side of Indianapolis, right.

Never

Marvin Smith: left 465.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. They, they, they, they don't have that kind of access. So we take 'em on field trips, we do the state, we do the region. We'll do, um, Indiana, um, Illinois, Ohio, wherever. Yep. Then we do the college exposure, and then we started doing, um, the country.

So we took a group of, um, of our STEM girls out to California.

Nate Spangle: No.

Sharon Clark: Right, right. Yeah. I'm like, you wanna know what it is? We're gonna take you to Silicon Valley. No way. We went to Bloomberg, we went to Google, we went to Gap. So they could see. All of these women who work in tech, but also so they could see something outside of their small neighborhood.

Right. Yeah. Um, and that inspired them to want to do more. It inspires them to want to dig more in school and everything else.

Nate Spangle: Well, they talk about this with, uh, Providence Cristo Rey High School. Mm-hmm. You guys familiar with PC? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And on Friday, or like one day a week, they have their students go out and like, have a professional internship and work.

Mm-hmm. And they talk about, if you just look at like, broadly the, the population that attends Providence Cristo Rey, their parents might be, uh, hourly workers. Mm-hmm. Or they might, like, not, not a lot of 'em have, you know, a, a career in STEM or like finance or whatever it is. And they put these kids in these professional settings at a pretty young age to just be exposed to all these new things.

And it's just so cool. It is. And like just learning that there are. Things to aspire.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: To hire to, right. Like, come on.

Sharon Clark: It's a game changer though. Yeah. You know, uh, one of the early ones we did in Indiana, there's so much here in Indy, right? So we did careers in sport and we did everything from a company who does sports games, right.

To obviously the NCAA, um, Dick's Sporting Goods. Like what does that look like on the backside? Not not in sales, not not in the store, but how do you produce all of that? So that was, that was a fun one. And we did that with middle schoolers.

Nate Spangle: That's so cool.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. Yeah.

Nate Spangle: And how, how fun is that to also bring kind of those two parts of like your, your philanthropic heart and your sports heart together.

Yeah. To put that, like, that's pretty fun.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: So you kind of got serious with the space in, is it 2017 timeframe? Yeah. And then COVID, obviously you have your budget, you're, you're rocking and rolling. How, like what is the space, describe it to us today. What does it look like in 2024?

Sharon Clark: Yeah,

Nate Spangle: and what are all the, the programs and things you guys are running outta there.

Sharon Clark: Yeah, so the first floor is all of our community space. So we have a large open area, which is obviously where the trucks used to be in the horses and all that. And then the back of that is our commercial kitchen. It's called the RyZe Kitchen. Right. Okay. So that

Nate Spangle: first, so when you say commercial, yeah.

Who's running that? Or can someone just come in and lease that space to make something? Or is it like a,

Sharon Clark: so we do do rentals, but our main emphasis is we have a group of chefs who come in and they teach. So we have a junior chef program, we have a nutrition program for the elementary school kids, and those kids can walk to our space, or they bring them over in afterschool programs, stuff like that.

Then we have our varsity chefs who are high school kids. So this summer, which I'll tell you about later this summer, that that group will be cooking out of there. Um, and then we have diabetes awareness and. IU Health and IU Indianapolis have been great partners of ours. So we do a lot of that type of programming.

We're hoping to kick off our Food as Medicine program. Yeah. With Marian University and their doctors of osteopathic medicine. So that's kind of like that first floor. It's all open public space for that. Yeah.

Nate Spangle: And like if you were a community member, if it's like 6:00 PM on a Tuesday mm-hmm. Can you pop in?

Sharon Clark: You can pop in? Um, or

Nate Spangle: is there like specific programming that's going on?

Sharon Clark: We have specific programming. We don't have certain days. Yeah. We don't have, uh, open hours per se. I got you.

Nate Spangle: Okay.

Sharon Clark: Um, we also added, um, similar to a food pantry that we do twice a month on Thursdays. Right. And then when the weather gets warm again, we go back outside and we do a farmer's market.

Right. The

Marvin Smith: program is called Thankful Thursdays.

Nate Spangle: Nice.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: So you, and you're,

Marvin Smith: and we give food away on Tuesdays,

Nate Spangle: give food away on Tuesdays and then

Sharon Clark: on Thursdays.

Nate Spangle: On Thursdays. On Thursday. Yeah. And then you're doing a farmer's market as well?

Sharon Clark: Yeah. We just basically move it all outside. Yeah. In the, in the late spring and summer.

Nate Spangle: That's amazing.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's a, I wanted

Marvin Smith: to add something to a point that Sharon said earlier. One of the things about the RyZe Kitchen is super important is teaching youth, teaching kids how to be able to cook in the kitchen and be able to make healthy, sustainable foods. Yeah. From the foods that we already, that we, and they already may already may have at home is super important.

Staying away from the Takis and ramen noodles. The things like that, the, the, the hot dogs and things like that. Yeah. But how to be able to grow your own food and actually how, how to be able to make it, how to be able to make food out of the garden that we have.

Nate Spangle: Let's dive into that a little bit. Yeah.

'cause I don't know if you know the average, I'm, I'm 29 years old. Mm-hmm. I coming from like a fairly well off families. So like, we had food and we, like, my mom made dinner at night and we had, you know, all that jazz. So talk to me about like, you know, this, uh, the aspect of a food desert

Sharon Clark: mm-hmm.

Nate Spangle: And growing and how important growing your own food is and knowing how to prepare it.

Uh, in a community like the northwest, the Near Northwest side of Indianapolis,

Sharon Clark: the misnomer is that, you know, you don't want to get healthy food. And that's not actually it, uh, people's palates are exposed very early when you're really young. Right. And then your palate gets trained, like, clearly I'm trained on sugar.

I, I'm eating, drinking too much sugar. Right? Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Right. I feel that.

Sharon Clark: But the, the real. Impetus for us is just being able to make sure that we can provide spaces. So like we're working right now to develop, I mean, to fundraise for a marketplace, small corner market, old school, you know, just like neighborhoods used to have where they can get fresh fruits, vegetables, that type of thing.

Yeah. Like if you go be there,

Nate Spangle: if you go like abroad, it's like a

Sharon Clark: Yes. A bodega. It's the thing. Yeah. Yeah. Like a, a bodega. Yeah. And we have, um, you know, another, um, Flanner House has a, a space off of MLK, but it's, it's not enough for the neighborhood, right? Mm-hmm. So we know that we want be

Nate Spangle: able to do that.

Yeah. Take me through, uh, if you spent a month in the Near Northwest side mm-hmm. Like where do you buy groceries?

Marvin Smith: So something that I wanted to add, um, on the near north side, uh, one of the problems, one of the big challenges is transportation. Mm-hmm. A lot of, um, a lot of the community members there, uh, don't drive.

Mm-hmm. Or don't have cars, so they solely rely on public transportation and not having a grocery store that is close that you can catch the bus to. In less than an hour, two hours to be there. You've

Sharon Clark: gotta go

Marvin Smith: up Michigan Road, so you to Yeah. So you have to be able to, you can't get it.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. There, there's a stretch.

I mean, listen, it, it, you asked me why I did this. It's heartbreaking for me to see people go into Family Dollar to get groceries. Mm-hmm. That's not groceries.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: Right. And that, but, but that's right there and that's what's available. Yeah. It's expensive. Um, well,

Nate Spangle: and I, I talked, um, with the crew from the IU Health District mm-hmm.

Which, if anyone remembers that episode, the, you guys are like a, an adjacent neighborhood. Mm-hmm.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Nate Spangle: And it's like, there's no grocery stores in this, in a, a large stretch of this space. But you also, like the Kroger or whoever Right. Is not incentivized to come in here and put a grocery store in.

Sharon Clark: Right.

Nate Spangle: And so it takes this like some sort of public private partnership or whatever it might be. Absolutely. It does to like put something in here because it is philanthropic. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like if, if the numbers made sense to put. A Kroger in here, they would've done it by now. They're pretty smart and run a lot of math.

Sharon Clark: Right.

Nate Spangle: And so it's like figuring out, but the people that are living here need this. Yeah. So it's like, how do you come together and put something like that

Sharon Clark: right together? So I think again, I think, um, you know, we have to think small, small, small format, right? Yeah. Um, and we have to provide, um, give people an option to, to get it and to have access to stuff.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: Until we can redevelop that neighborhood more, which means until we can build more housing, till we can put more people in. You asked me what we did with the firehouse. We added four apartments upstairs. So every time we, every time a firehouse or Aspire Higher. Foundation build something, we build housing with it.

Right? Yeah. That's just a part of what we do because we've got to do more infill housing. Mm-hmm. We have to build more density. Right. So the metrics and the numbers work for an Aldi or a grocery store or whatever. Yeah. You know, that type of thing.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. 'cause then once you can help develop the neighborhood and get, you know, less vacancy.

Right. You talked about there being a, a lot of abandoned houses through there.

Sharon Clark: Empty lots. Yep.

Nate Spangle: Empty lot. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's like getting that. Then the numbers start to make sense. Mm-hmm. For a market or a, you know, maybe one day a Walmart super session.

Sharon Clark: Right, right, right. But

Nate Spangle: like,

Sharon Clark: but the reality, the real reality that I've learned is it takes them helping, right?

Mm-hmm. So when you start talking about a Kroger or Meijer or whatever, they all have foundations.

Nate Spangle: Yes.

Sharon Clark: And they can help now. Right. Until we can build up those numbers. It's the chicken or the egg. Right? You, if, if the three of us are gonna move over in that neighborhood, we want amenities.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: We wanna have stuff to, to pick up and buy a house and move over.

Nate Spangle: And especially if you rely heavily on public transportation and walking or biking, like trying to get over to the Kroger on 16th Street or up Michigan Road, like that's a haul. If you have a, like a bag or even it, even two bags of groceries. That's Absolutely.

Sharon Clark: And where we're located in Northwest Landing, it's gonna be even more of a haul because.

IndyGo has now changed the route and rerouted it. So it's skipping a whole group of people now. Right. So they're gonna have to walk quite a ways just to get to a new, the new bus route that's gonna come out. And that makes it even more difficult for people. So they rely upon what they can get to.

Nate Spangle: When you think of these, the, the issues, right?

So food being one. Mm-hmm. Transportation, how are you taking these, these big problems and breaking it down to actionable steps to actually make an impact.

Sharon Clark: Mm-hmm. So a a hundred percent, this is where my background in athletics has come from, right? So building out like that master plan of 5, 10, 15 years and trying to, trying to work through that.

I mean, at times it can be overwhelming, but the real reality is I've got great partners and great people along this journey, like Ratio Design. Bill Brown at Ratio is amazing. Person has been with us the whole time. I wouldn't know how to do a lot of those things, but just having him as a resource sometimes to say, what do you think about this marketplace?

Like, what's really, what can we really build? Yeah. Like

Nate Spangle: what would, what would it take to build a marketplace for fresh groceries

Sharon Clark: in

Nate Spangle: that Near Northwest side?

Sharon Clark: So I, I need to make sure people understand this. This is not like a big full service grocery store. Yeah. This is a. Old school corner store with lots of stuff, but it also has three other components.

So financial, there's no bank in the area. Mm-hmm. Right. So we don't have a full service bank in the area. So I'm working with a couple of banking partners to see how we can do some new innovative ways to, to put financial centers back in there. Right.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: The, the whole build out right now, the, the first numbers that we got back on a low scale are like $2.9 million on a high scale, 4.5.

Right. And I'm like, Hmm. I was thinking, you know, 800,000, I can raise that. So this is, this is typically what happens for us, right? Yeah. But at the end of the day,

Nate Spangle: it's never, it's never like in the budget that you thought it's oh 800,000,

Sharon Clark: no.

Nate Spangle: Two point whatever,

Sharon Clark: million dollars. Yeah. But we're committed.

We're committed for the long haul, and we're also committed to every space we build it being a great space. Yeah. You know?

Nate Spangle: Have you built multiple spaces?

Sharon Clark: Yeah, we've built, um, two now we're, we're, um, about to do a grand opening of our second space.

Nate Spangle: Okay. So, so space number one is like that community space on the first floor with the kitchen.

Sharon Clark: Yep.

Nate Spangle: And on the top floor, it's four apartments. Uh, four apartments. What's in the, is there, is there two stories or three?

Sharon Clark: There's three. There's three. Yeah.

Nate Spangle: What's the, what's the middle story?

Sharon Clark: So the middle story is two apartments. Oh. Oh, okay. They're pretty good size. They're like 800 square feet.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: And then two on the third

Nate Spangle: floor.

Ah, okay. So it's community, space, and kitchen. Oh. Imagine having that one apartment, like one of those, they're really cool. Second level apartments.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Well imagine one of those. And they're like cooking something, like, poke your head downstairs. Like, yo. Oh,

Sharon Clark: they do, they come down.

Nate Spangle: What's going on down there?

There you go. They

Sharon Clark: come down.

Nate Spangle: Okay. So

Sharon Clark: that's, that was phase one. That's one. And then the second one, um, is a art and wellness space. Mm-hmm.

Nate Spangle: Where's this one at?

Sharon Clark: It's right across the street. So diagonally across the street, we were able to acquire that. What space before it was an old boarded up house.

Nate Spangle: Mm-hmm.

Sharon Clark: Yeah,

Nate Spangle: there you go.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: And so you have now a spot across the street. Yes. And what, what does that space look like? And, and talked about the grand opening.

Sharon Clark: So that space is, um, so we kind of vaulted it blew up, um, um, a giant open and added a loft, so a sleeping loft. Mm-hmm. And we really needed that for like, our arts and artists who come in to have a place to stay, um, short residencies, stuff like that.

Um, so that we can bring that into the community. We also have like a grow room in there for growing indoor plants. We wanted it to be more of a calm, serene space. Um, there's a beautiful kitchen in it, and then we added a lot of outdoor space. So we have two decks on it. And then a huge, um, adjacent art space.

Mm-hmm.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: That connects.

Nate Spangle: Very cool. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. I have a question. How well do you know the history of the Near Northwest side

Sharon Clark: Pretty well.

Nate Spangle: Okay. Yeah. So here's, here's my question. When you think of the old north side of Indianapolis mm-hmm. You think of big, beautiful homes. Mm-hmm. You know, like, I, I don't know, like, it just feels like that was like at one time, like the Carmel of downtown Indianapolis.

Yeah. Like beautiful. Like people still wanna live on the old north side. And then as you shift towards the old Northwest side mm-hmm. It seems as though like the development didn't quite, uh, hit the same. So where in this did, did things get split off and how did, what was the history of the Near Northwest side of Indianapolis?

Sharon Clark: So one of the, the biggest driving factors was, um, probably in the fifties, sixties when one, they made the choice to run the I-65 through there. Mm-hmm. And they split up and broke up that neighborhood. And then it also got redlined. And this is very, what does that

Nate Spangle: mean?

Sharon Clark: Redlining? Yeah. So redlining is back in the day, they used to literally, for insurance purposes and other things, draw a red line around black and brown communities.

And then those communities would, would have a hard time getting loans, insurance, um, all types of, any investor.

Nate Spangle: Okay. So there was a physical barrier of the new

Sharon Clark: highway. Anybody can go, you can Google it, ChatGPT, whatever. It's all yes.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: And then this community then got redlined. redlined,

Sharon Clark: correct.

Nate Spangle: Wow.

Sharon Clark: So it was redline community. I think the other thing, 'cause there was a lot over there. We're currently in the middle of a history project, so it's funny you should ask this Yeah. To learn the history of the neighborhood. So let me tell you six of the things that we found out about this neighborhood. Yes.

Nate Spangle: I'm here for this.

Sharon Clark: So 16th Street, right?

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: Um, the, um, stadium Lofts, that ballpark right there. Mm-hmm. Negro League baseball played there. So we did that as one of our projects. Three women played in the Negro League baseball at that stadium, right?

Nate Spangle: No, this had, and this had to be, uh, forever ago.

Sharon Clark: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nate Spangle: That's so cool.

Sharon Clark: But it's the history of the neighborhood and like, I'm like, no, we need that out. You know, the Father Boniface Hardin is another one that we did. Um, who's that? He is, uh, he was a, um, clergy at Holy Angels School. One of the schools that we work with today. Right? Yeah. It's two blocks from us. And he's also the co-founder of Martin University.

So he was the one who started Martin University, which

Nate Spangle: also is like going through a ton right

Sharon Clark: now.

Nate Spangle: Oh my

Sharon Clark: gosh.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: A whole lot of stuff. And we hope that that can stay. I mean, I hope we really don't want that to change, to lose the history of that, but the biggest one for me, my favorite one is. You know where public library number one is?

Nate Spangle: Where

Sharon Clark: public library number one is? Right around the corner from our firehouse.

Nate Spangle: Whoa. Public library.

Sharon Clark: Public library number one. Um, was called the Riverside Branch Library and was the first, basically the first standalone library in the city of Indianapolis. And it is still standing there today. And we hope, is

Nate Spangle: it still a library?

Sharon Clark: No, it's closed. It's just a building. It's, it's just clo It's been closed for years. What? And we hope that some, you know, to someone can help us get funding to get that back open. I

Nate Spangle: gotta look at to, I gotta, I gotta get a glimpse of this building.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. Okay. Wait, it's a beautiful little brick building.

Nate Spangle: Where would it be at?

Sharon Clark: It's on Clifton. It's 3101 Clifton.

Nate Spangle: That is so cool.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. We're gonna unveil that. The Firehouse and Elder Diggs School. Those are our three recent ones. We're getting ready to unveil those next month.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: I mean this is, this is the first library, that's

Sharon Clark: why it's public library number one.

Nate Spangle: That's,

Sharon Clark: it was the first built standalone library in the city of Indianapolis. And it's just, it's sitting there.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. Who owns it?

Sharon Clark: Uh, one of the neighborhood associations.

Nate Spangle: Oh, that's good.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. I

Nate Spangle: think

Sharon Clark: hopefully, hopefully they'll do something with it.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. I

Nate Spangle: mean, that

Sharon Clark: looks, we'd love, we'd love to help 'em.

Nate Spangle: Okay, so, so that was more history that you learned.

Sharon Clark: This history project is being sponsored by the Mellon Foundation for us.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: And the stuff that we've found, we're like, oh my gosh, we gotta keep going. There's so much more. And again, we want the kids and the people in this community to have to know what was there before.

Right. And how I got to this was, as we've been doing this, I was like, there was some kind of Kroger there, there was all of those things. And buildings that used to be there are no longer there. So when you look at an old North side, you look at some of the other, they still have some of their historic spaces and buildings.

That's why it was critical for us to save the firehouse.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: But. The Near Northwest does not have most of. It's buildings that were there, they weren't able to save those. So we've gotta replace and rebuild a lot of that stuff. Yeah. There was a grocery store there a long time ago, right? There was a bakery there, there was a cleaner.

Nate Spangle: So what are I gonna say? What are like the must save projects or must save buildings within the Near Northwest side, right? You had your firehouse.

Sharon Clark: Yep.

Nate Spangle: Then you have the library.

Sharon Clark: The library, and then you, the library is a big one. The school. So school 42 is Elder Diggs school. Speaker 2: Elder Digg. Who's

Sharon Clark: Elder

Nate Spangle: Diggs.

Sharon Clark: Yep. So Elder Diggs is our, is our, one of our hidden gems. Um, Elder Diggs was the principal at that school for I don't know how many years, probably 30 years. He was amazing. This guy did everything. He was a Buffalo soldier. Um, he also was the founder of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Incorporated at Indiana University.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: Right. So he was just an amazing man. Like, he just did so many different things. Um, and

Nate Spangle: he died in 1947.

Sharon Clark: Yep.

Nate Spangle: He, he was the principal and a teacher for 26 years. 26. And then after he passed in 47, then they named 42 after him.

Sharon Clark: Correct.

Nate Spangle: Elder Diggs.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. Amazing guy. Amazing guy. And the more that, um, you know, our researchers find out about him, the, the more I get intrigued and again, I'm like, why isn't this splashed all over?

So we want it all over the neighborhood. Right. We want all of them to be, to be out there. Mm-hmm. You know?

Nate Spangle: Wow. His nickname was the Dreamer.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Absolutely. Yeah. That's so cool. Oh my goodness. Like the more you know Yeah. He got to, uh, IU in 19. 10.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Helped organize Yeah. Kappa Alpha Psi.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Heck yeah.

Sharon Clark: Which is, it's one of the, you know, there are nine black fraternities and sororities.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: Um, and for that to be founded, and actually people don't know this, but two of those nine were founded in Indiana. Yep. The other one at Butler University with Sigma Gamma Rho.

Nate Spangle: If you said that across the country, no one, and give people 25, give them 40, absolutely.

49 choices. And I don't know if they would've picked Indiana.

Sharon Clark: They

would,

Nate Spangle: but that's pretty cool. That's a hidden

Sharon Clark: gem, right?

Nate Spangle: Yep.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. Like.

Nate Spangle: I don't know. You talk about, you know, being able to go out there and build something like two of nine, that's pretty impressive.

Marvin Smith: Absolutely.

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What kind of partners do you need to come alongside of you? Like what can we really do to help push the needle forward?

Sharon Clark: You know, what's, what's next for us is absolutely this marketplace, right? Getting that going and then con, continuing to build housing. Um, building dense housing, like we're in the mixed middle, um, development space.

So mixed middle is like four to eight unit spaces. You know, we're never gonna, we're not downtown. We're not building, you know, for high rise 42. No, no. It doesn't, doesn't fit. Right. So we wanna make sure it fits in the neighborhood and we wanna make sure those people who live there, um, like what they see and mm-hmm.

But we need density, so,

Nate Spangle: yeah. When, when you talk to members of that community down there

Sharon Clark: mm-hmm.

Nate Spangle: What are the things that they're looking for? Like Yeah. What are they saying they want in their neighborhood?

Sharon Clark: They want the same thing everybody else has in their neighborhood. And that's a park and that's, they great parks, right.

They want space to, to exercise, move around and be, but they also want like a coffee shop. They want some place to, to meet and hang out. They want third spaces for the young people. And that's something we're gonna provide this summer.

Nate Spangle: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, places to hang out where it's. Chill.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: You know, and

Sharon Clark: yeah.

They want restaurants that they can go sit down in.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: Um, those types of things.

Nate Spangle: I feel like that is something that India is really pouring into, like even more. I think that historically you, when you think about third spaces, it's been big cities like mm-hmm. New York, Chicago, places like that, where you have small living quarters.

Mm-hmm. So like inviting someone over for dinner is like. Well, we're gonna eat dinner in my bedroom, you know? Right. That's kind of weird. Uh, so everyone would be at the local coffee shop, like if you know the show friends. Yeah. It's like everyone's been, or the How I Met Your Mother, they always hang out at the same bar.

Sharon Clark: Right.

Nate Spangle: I think Indie is pouring more into that, where it's like, Hey, I'm gonna go to wherever. And it's not just to eat and get out, it's just like, let's just sit and chill and hang out and friend. Like, you never know who's gonna show up. Right. It's like, cheers. Right.

Sharon Clark: Absolutely.

Nate Spangle: I love that. Okay. Yeah, so third spaces,

Sharon Clark: third spaces, um, and amenities.

You know, we, they need a financial institution to be a part of the community. Um, and then they need the basic stuff that we all have, but they want walkability. Mm-hmm. You know, um, they wanna be able to walk to go get things that they need, want pharmacy. You know. Yeah. Stuff that we take for granted. No, everybody doesn't mail order all of their stuff in.

Um, and no Meijer doesn't deliver over in that area. Mm-hmm. You know, that type of thing.

Nate Spangle: That's

Sharon Clark: wild. So just being able to, to help be robust, that's, that's kind of our space. And Yeah. You know, we've gotten to where we are with great partners and great supporters. IU Health is one of those who really helped us build out the apartments.

Lowe's did a great job. They helped us build out the apartments. We could not do this without those type support. Shout. Yeah.

Marvin Smith: Yeah. Absolutely

Nate Spangle: is a

Marvin Smith: good partner.

Nate Spangle: Marvin, when you, when you think about being on the board of Aspire Higher, like what about this mission gets you fired up and why do you continue to pour time into it?

Marvin Smith: Um, because everything that we do is impactful. And that's one of like the things that we really, uh, that's one of the things, one of our core missions is, uh, not serving the many, but making sure that the ones that we do serve, that we, that we have a true impact.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Marvin Smith: And sometimes that's, um. That has guided our decisions.

'cause a lot of people want numbers, numbers, numbers. But what are those numbers doing for Yeah. And the individuals, um, in our community, they have a lot of needs. They have a lot of needs that are, that have been underserved for years. Yeah. Um,

Nate Spangle: like if the answer was like, okay, it's all numbers. It's like, okay, well then buy a 500,000 packets of ramen.

Mm-hmm. And hand that out like Right, it's like boxes checked there. Right. You have the numbers, but like training the good habits that hopefully will then translate generationally and it's like one day if you taught, even if they don't end up becoming a chef down the road, but they learned right through cooking classes how to make healthy food.

And hopefully like their kids and their kids' kids will also have that. Uh, ingrained of like making healthy dinner and having a garden and growing that. Like

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: That I think is impactful.

Sharon Clark: And they learn how to work with other people. Yeah. You know, that teamwork and that being a part of something is what kids are longing for.

And so all of those things provide that. I think the other thing that we are really intentional about what we need and we need partners to help us get there, is, um, these educational spaces outside of schools, right? Yeah. So we need a, a real tinker space for our little kids, you know, our, our K to to fours, and then we need STEM space and we are gonna build that.

We, we are determined to get that built in. Yeah. So that it can be there. And then the medical and the health, all of that wellness stuff. Um, we continue to need to make sure we have that in our community.

Nate Spangle: How do you. Build relationships and build with the community versus coming in and telling them what they need and it feeling like you are forcing your vision onto them.

Sharon Clark: Sure.

Nate Spangle: I feel like whether it's, you know, rural, small towns, we had a, a, a couple weeks ago we had two, uh, individuals that are building out in Danville and building out in Martinsville. Mm-hmm. But they weren't originally from those communities. So small towns are very protective. Mm-hmm. Just like neighborhoods are very protective.

Yep. Yeah. And the last thing that people want is like outsider with all, like with money or funding or whoever, their partnership with Lowe's comes in and starts saying, Hey, you should do it this way because the way I think is right and the way you're doing it is wrong. Right. So how do you build relationships and, and really build with the community

Marvin Smith: first?

So that's a very good question. Uh, currently I was down at the Spire House last week and I was looking at some of the flyers and some of the things like that, and Sharon can talk about it more, but I've seen that, uh, we're currently conducting a community survey.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Marvin Smith: And, um, that information is, is going to translate to, to how we do our planning and whatnot.

And, um, and ask was made that we go to door to door handing out these pamphlets for the community to answer. Those questions for that survey about what they actually need. But Sharon can talk more about what

Sharon Clark: Yeah. I mean, I think we're pretty transparent. Like everybody knows who we are and what we are and um, we, we ask them what they're looking for, but we also give them ideas.

'cause a lot of people don't know what they don't know. Right. You can say, I want this X, Y, and Z and you've never seen that

Nate Spangle: before. Yeah. And you talk about, you know, taking those groups to outside of 465 and to California. Right. And it's like, well people maybe aren't familiar with how it feels in Silicon Valley and like the hustle and bustle and the energy.

Right. And so it's hard to say we want that if you've never seen that. Absolutely. Or like if you've never gone to Midtown Carmel and like experienced what it's like they have the farmer's market and the whole nine yards there. Exactly. So yeah, it is like a delicate balance of like. Like painting a broad vision of like all the different things.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: And then even getting people up there to experience those different areas to be like, oh, it would be really cool if we had a farmer's market, or mm-hmm. It'd be really cool if we had this commercial kitchen that was always churning out cool stuff. Right. And, and you know, doing programming. I think that's like a delicate balance that takes a true, uh, a great leader to be in that space and to not feel like you are forcing your thing.

I mean, you talk about like your vision for, uh, a volleyball team.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: And if you just come in and say, it's my way or the highway and it's this, this, and blah, blah, blah. Like, it, they won't relate to you.

Sharon Clark: No, it

Nate Spangle: doesn't. But if you like, you know, show them and they start to discover it on their own, then that's when the magic

Sharon Clark: happens.

Yeah. And I think you gotta give people, let them have their voice. Right. And so we let people have their voice and we help. Um. Guide it by giving them education. Like we, we, we show 'em a way When we talk about housing, a lot of people are like, we just need to put the houses back that were there. And right now we're in an educational cycle of helping them understand that density will bring a grocery store.

Right. So instead of replacing a single house on that, if we can build a, a, a duplex or a a four flat Yeah. That's gonna help build more. It's also gonna make the, the community more robust.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. And it is hard as you've been in the community for a long time here. Mm-hmm. I just miss, I just want that to be mm-hmm.

And it's like, well, unfortunately, like we have to find a way forward and to, and like building the, the 1, 2, 3, how do the dominoes fall to actually make the change and the impact.

Sharon Clark: Right.

Nate Spangle: And that's just such a Right.

Sharon Clark: It

Nate Spangle: is, it's, it's very, it's very rewarding, but also could be challenging work. So

Sharon Clark: it can be, I think a lot of times people particularly, um, older people are kind of stuck and set in their ways.

So we do a lot of work with our kids, with our youth. Right. Um, our program that we have coming up this summer, it's called After Hours. Um, and it's kind of our response to our kids telling us, you know, like we were asking 'em like, why are you guys downtown, like doing dumb stuff? Like, why are you up at Castleton Mall?

Why, why is there a mess up there? Like, and they just started telling us stuff, right? And so we're like, okay. They basically said, we don't have any place to be if you're not 21 years old. Right. Where do you go? And then I said, well, there's kids all over the city. And they're like, yeah, if you're in Carmel, you got restaurants to go to.

You have ice cream shop, you can hang out on Main Street. They can just sit on the benches. Like, they literally were saying this, and I'm like. They're right. We don't have that over here. Yeah. So we're gonna create it. We're going to, we're After Hours is a program that'll run Friday and Saturday nights in June and July all summer long.

And from seven to 11:00 PM and we'll have five like creating

Nate Spangle: a space,

Sharon Clark: five activated spaces for them. Nice. So there's Five Village, we call 'em Villages. Mm-hmm. But there'll be five spaces for them to come in, hang out with their friends, be a part of. They learn something great. And if they're just connecting, it's cross-generational.

We, we met with our neighborhood association. I'm like, we want you guys out here with them. You know?

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: So

Nate Spangle: I love that.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. Just after seeing that, yeah. There's not a lot of stuff for kids to do. I think, like, guess the average kid thing too, to say's like, there's nothing to do here besides like, stare at the wall or play video games.

Mm-hmm. Or whatever it might be. And so, yeah, giving them an opportunity to connect with their peers and hang out. Maybe like not, you know, write with their parents every, like, 17 year old's trying to like, hang out with their, especially especially on a Friday. Yeah. It's like, I'm not trying to like hang out in the, in the living room with my mom, you know?

I love that. That's awesome. That's gonna kick off the summer. It's, are there other program programs and things that you guys are, are kicking off?

Sharon Clark: Yeah, we'll be doing that program and then, um, we'll have our teamworks program and then our, we're launching three new Latina programs. That's the tech program this fall.

So we have one in fire science. Right. So we're working with, uh, some firefighters to do that. Um, we'll have that one, we'll have a ai um, program that'll go on. And then we have a program called Build. And so it's the trades. Mm-hmm. Right. And that one was kind of, I, I was way outta my zone and one of the kids said, how come all the programs you have you gotta go to college for?

And I'm like, what? I'm like, no. And he's like, yeah, that's all you do is stuff you gotta go to college for. And they were. Right. But that was my perspective, right? Yeah. That was my background was college. And so we started a build program because once we started doing the research, we were, we need a million zillion electricians.

Mm-hmm. We need plumbers and we need framers. And

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: With doing all the building that we've been doing, I continued to see the same people in those positions and there's not enough.

Marvin Smith: Right.

Sharon Clark: So, yeah. And

Marvin Smith: just for the youth, just giving them options of college and career readiness about what they wanna do.

Indianapolis has tons of manufacturing jobs, warehouse jobs that you can go to, but the lifespan of those is very, very short and, and kids get burnt out doing those. You make a lot of money really quick, but it's not a sustainable career. So through our different programs, it's just to be able to give kids options about.

What we were talking about earlier, knowing what you like is important, but also knowing what you don't like is also Yeah. Equally as important.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. It's, you know, you think about a warehouse job or packing, shipping, doing whatever there, it's like, yeah, you can burn out pretty quick. That if you had exposure to installing, I dunno, electrical or mm-hmm.

Plumbing or whatever it might be. That's, you can find out. Oh, like, and they're pretty lucrative too. Yeah, they are. Yeah. Some of those like skilled trades jobs are,

Sharon Clark: they are,

Nate Spangle: I'm wondering like, what, I know I'm paying 'em, what are we, what are we doing over here? I'm like,

Sharon Clark: I'm in the wrong, I was in the wrong business.

Really. I'm paying 'em.

Nate Spangle: Amazing y'all. Well, hey, it's been so great hanging out with you guys and learning more about all the fun stuff you're doing with Aspire Higher. We do have the end of the show where we have some Indiana focused lightning round questions. Yeah. Okay. So this first question is brought to you by our friends at J.C. Hart.

They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. Check them out at homeisjchart.com. My question for you, we'll start with you Sharon. Why do you call Indiana home?

Sharon Clark: You know, sport brought me here, sports brought me here, and obviously sports and sporting is a big deal here and I love every aspect of it.

Can't wait for Final Four, but I love the vibrancy of the city. You know, Indy just has tons going on, and I don't care who you are or what you like, there's something here for you. So I like that. I think it keeps people young and keeps 'em moving. So that's, that's, that's my thing.

Nate Spangle: Heck yeah. All right.

Marvin, why do you call Indiana home?

Marvin Smith: Uh, definitely sort of something that we talked about earlier before moving from Kentucky, a very, very small town to Indianapolis, Indiana. It's, um. S me and my family moved here. It's not a super big city, but it's not a small town, but it kind of has a small town feel.

Yeah. It seems like you can't run into somebody in Indianapolis without knowing somebody that you go to school, church lives in your community, something like that, which is very interesting. Um, so everyone knows everybody and we all support each other and I feel like that Indy, Indy's growing together.

Nate Spangle: Okay. What's your favorite volleyball moment at Butler?

Sharon Clark: Okay. This is gonna sound really corny. It actually doesn't have to do with on the court. My favorite volleyball moments at Butler are always in May. It's always graduation. So when I have players graduating,

Nate Spangle: wow.

Sharon Clark: Those, that was always the cool part.

Nate Spangle: I mean, how many different, yeah.

If you had to think about 23 years or plus 30. 30 years, like how many different graduates come through? Like there's a lot of people. Yeah. A

Sharon Clark: couple

Nate Spangle: hundred in the, in the coaching tree, you know?

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Are there any of your former players that are now coaches.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. That are probably like, yeah, there are several that are now coaches.

You

Nate Spangle: helped impact my life. A

Sharon Clark: coach. Yeah. I'll tell you the ones I, I, I love the most. I'm like, oh, I've got a couple doctors. I got a nurse practitioner. I was like, okay, my body will be good for a while.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. Now you're talking. Okay. Uh, I think that is, that is powerful. Uh, I do wanna dive. So, uh, Marvin, were you an athlete?

Marvin Smith: Uh, high school athlete.

Nate Spangle: High school athlete.

Marvin Smith: North Central. Yep.

Nate Spangle: Hey, there we

Marvin Smith: go. Come on. Alright. CCA sports. Come on.

Nate Spangle: Alright. What's the best piece of advice that you've both received from a coach,

Marvin Smith: coach Doug Mitchell at North Central? Just being high school students, being boys, clowning around, joking and things like that.

And he said, you should never get your joy from another man's misery. Right. So just laughing at people, making fun of him, and, uh, just being a kind human right. So, uh, being a high school student, it definitely resonated with me. But also growing up and maturing, being a responsible, respectful adult is you shouldn't get your joy from another person's misery.

Right. You shouldn't like to see people struggle and see people going through situations that you can help them out and just laugh at 'em and keep moving.

Nate Spangle: That's powerful.

Marvin Smith: Mm-hmm.

Nate Spangle: Like, it, it's isn't, isn't it great that some of the most profound wisdom as at its core, so simple?

Marvin Smith: Mm-hmm.

Nate Spangle: Like that is, that is such an inspiring, profound quote, but the sentence is not that crazy.

Sharon Clark: Right.

Nate Spangle: And it's like, if we just like sit down to like, look at that, and it's like, yeah, duh. Like. You know, to be a good person, you should not get your happiness from someone else's unhappiness.

Sharon Clark: Right.

Nate Spangle: That is Power Coach Doug Mitchell.

Sharon Clark: Doug

Nate Spangle: Mitchell. What a guy. That is a, if I had to think about like a fire football coach quote, like, that's it right there.

Like, like you, you're, it's like a Thursday after practice and he pulls that one out while you guys are in the huddle and you're like, shoot. Like, that's so true.

Marvin Smith: Yeah. Doug Mitchell was a basketball coach.

Nate Spangle: Oh, he was a basketball coach.

Marvin Smith: State champion. Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Hey, there we go. All right. At North Central?

Marvin Smith: Yes. At North Central.

Nate Spangle: Heck yeah.

Marvin Smith: Yeah. Our, uh, basketball, football players, we did our athletic weight training together. So we would get, we would get two coaches get all the time. Yeah. Not so even a coach. Yeah. You don't want two coaches, two head coaches at the same time. No, thank you.

Nate Spangle: So it wasn't even your sport. That's crazy.

A minute. This was the basketball, sorry, Sharon. This was the basketball coach, and that is the most profound quote that you remember. And he wasn't even your coach.

Marvin Smith: Yes, sir.

Nate Spangle: Shout out to that guy. All right, Sharon.

Sharon Clark: I had a great mentor who was a, it was a old football coach, um, and he said, always be authentically you.

He says, you, you, you can only fake things for so long, and if you're authentically you, your kids will love and appreciate you for that at some point.

Nate Spangle: Absolutely. Totally. I'm, uh, I'm the head wrestling coach at Bishop Chatard High School. Oh, nice. Awesome. And so, like they all think that I'm so like goofy and corny.

Yeah. Which I am. Mm-hmm. Like at my core, I tell dad jokes and I am corny.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: But like, they've just grown to appreciate that. Mm-hmm. And they know like, like we work really hard, but we also, you know, I don't take myself too fun with it. Too seriously with, yeah. Yeah. So you don't have to take yourself too seriously.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Okay. If you could snap your fingers and host any neighborhood event in the Near Northwest side, what would you host?

Sharon Clark: I would host this, this large called Flow Fest. Flow

Nate Spangle: Fest.

Sharon Clark: Flow Fest. And it's a huge, it's got music, anything that makes. Your senses feel good. So it would have a whole village of food and taste, um, music for, you know, stimulating sound in your ears.

Oh. Um, things that are for touch. So artisan markets, so you could go through and things that you touch, like everything that stimulates your senses, smell, um, all the great things with smell, you know? Um, I, I think that we don't create enough space and festival things for all people to come to, just to feel good.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: Just to make you feel good.

Nate Spangle: Like I just Yeah, just like a, a happiness festival.

Sharon Clark: Yeah. Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Like, you're gonna, you're guaranteed to leave this festival with a smile.

Sharon Clark: Yes.

Nate Spangle: That's awesome. Okay. Marvin?

Marvin Smith: Something similar. Uh, it would be a neighborhood party gathering, things like that. Right. Um, where you could bring.

Like a pitch-in party to where? To where the neighbors could connect and get to know each other. Yeah. sit down, dine, learn about each other. Learned about the schools that were going to. Then of course, at nighttime party dance, have a good time. Yeah. Share some joy, create a memory, and then be able to leave and go back.

Nate Spangle: Yeah, I like that. Those are both great ideas. Okay. Let's see. People are listening that don't live on the Near Northwest side of Indianapolis, but they wanna make an impact in their local community. What's your biggest piece of advice to make an impact in a small community?

Sharon Clark: So, my biggest advice is to start, right?

That's the hardest part for people. A lot of people have great thoughts, great ideas. They really wanna help. They really wanna do something, but they just have a hard time starting and it start with one. Just one.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. And a lot of times I feel like people get caught up in like getting permission. Mm-hmm.

You know, you think about that. If you would've waited for the Near Northwest. Community association to say, yes, you can do this. You would not own firehouse.

Sharon Clark: Right.

Nate Spangle: You And like you would, you'd be just shouting into the void. Yeah. If you would've waited for some sort of magical approval to like host a camp or something that like you would've never gotten it.

Yeah. 'cause the world is actually really funny where it's like, you think that there is someone in charge of whatever, but a lot of times it's like, oh, if you have a dream of like going to making an impact, just go do it. And if at some point along the road, you know, you have to get permission from someone, like they will s they'll surface and you can go to that.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Uh, but a lot of people are awake, wait and get all, I don't know, they just like get caught up in

Sharon Clark: their tape. It doesn't have to be big. You don't have to something big. People ask me things all the time. They say, why do you do this? And I just simply say, why not? Why not?

Nate Spangle: Why not?

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Marvin, do you have advice?

Marvin Smith: Yeah, definitely. What I say is get to know your neighbors, right? Yeah. Um, a lot of people don't know their neighbors, don't know their neighbor's name, don't know what their neighbors do. You, you meet on Wednesdays and Thursdays when you take your trash cans out, take your trash cans to the, into the block, and you may wave, but you've been living next to your neighbors forever.

You may see 'em whenever you're getting the kids on a school bus, dropping 'em off, but just getting to know your neighbors. And that's, yeah, that's where it starts. And then you decide things like that that you can continue to do whenever. Um, I bought a house a couple years ago and one of the things on my street that I've been trying to do is get the street lights replaced.

Right? So we, you have to call the neighborhood, uh, the na, the Mayor's Action Center to be able to get that replaced, right? But what I've been telling my neighbors is the more of us that calls, we can get those streetlights replaced. It's, it's really dark on our street and it's. Four lights, that's out, but, and what

Sharon Clark: street are you on?

Marvin Smith: Coliseum. Coliseum Avenue. Uh, so I live really close to the, uh, to the fairgrounds, to the, to the state fair. Right. So it's crazy during the state fair, but that's helping. Um, they replaced the street, they repaved the alley, which is super good, right? Mm-hmm. Behind our house. But it's, I I think that all came from just some of the neighbors.

Yeah. And we took our trash out. Have you made that call yet? Oh, thanks for the reminder. Like little things like that. Yeah. It, it just helps your, your neighborhood just by starting up.

Nate Spangle: I, I think that sometimes people get so focused on making the biggest impact possible. Mm-hmm. That they forget to make the smallest impact.

Sharon Clark: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Stuff, you know, like just a kind, even like kind of words and knowing your neighbor's name.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Like what if we all took that as a challenge? Like, I've actually, I've had a couple of these conversations in the last month and I'm like, I'm not doing as good as I could. Because I still don't know the names of a few of my neighbors.

Mm-hmm. And it's like, well if you started there and then you could learn another thing about them and then all of a sudden, you know, you could be working to, whether it be, it's a lot easier to, you know, push a, a initiative forward if you know your partner's name

Sharon Clark: right? Absolutely.

Nate Spangle: If you know your teammate's name, like Yeah.

It's like the so simple. But we're like, I would be so focused on how do we throw the block party of the century, right. That I don't even know who I need to, I don't even know who to address the invitations to the block party to,

Sharon Clark: I think people are yearning for reconnection with people. Yeah. Absolutely.

Nate Spangle: Alright, so that's the challenge for all listeners today. You go out, learn a new neighbor's name between now and the next time you listen to the show.

Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Awesome. Learn a new neighbor's name like that would just be a positive momentum. Oh my goodness. I love it. Alright, these are the same three questions we ask every guest who comes on all about the state of Indiana.

So we'll start with Sharon. What's something the world needs to know about Indiana?

Sharon Clark: If you have vision, you can turn vision into velocity. Right. So it's like it's a fertile ground for taking off and launching.

Nate Spangle: We might need to put that on a shirt. Vision into velocity. I mean, they've been saying Indy's Speed City.

Yeah, yeah. And that is like vision into velocity. I'm down for it. Let's go. I love that. Okay. Amazing. Marvin.

Marvin Smith: Mine is simple. Uh, Indiana has more than corn. Being a young adult people, when I say I'm from Indianapolis, they'd be like, where is that? I'm like, come on, we hosted the Super Bowl. we hosted the All-Star Game.

We have the Motor Speedway. We have almost all of the major sports teams Stop. Like you've never heard of Indianapolis before, and they just think corn.

Nate Spangle: Absolutely. Okay, this next question, we're know Marvin and Will come back here. So this is your opportunity to shed some light on a part of the city, a part of the state that more people need to be talking about.

What is a hidden gem in Indiana?

Marvin Smith: The Cultural Trail is absolutely amazing. Running, jogging, doing fitness, uh, running on a Cultural Trail, there's a lot of hidden gems about not only just. Indianapolis, but the state of Indiana as well. Some of the people that have made the city and the state what, what it is, running on running or jogging, walking your pet on the Indianapolis Cultural Trail is definitely a

Nate Spangle: hidden.

Yeah. There's so many cool little tidbits and facts of across that. It's, it's definitely worth that. All right. What is a hidden gem in Indiana?

Sharon Clark: Ooh, okay. I have two For the state. I would say being a West Coast person, Indiana Dunes is pretty cool and I would've never known. And you know, you go up there and I'm like, wow, this is pretty, it's beautiful and it's awesome.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. So Indiana Dunes would be that, and I have a second one.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: For the city, which is my love, which is Eagle Creek Park. It rocks

Nate Spangle: absolutely, totally rocks. Yes. Eagle Creek is super, super cool.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Uh, very interesting. I actually just had. A bunch of people from citizens

Sharon Clark: mm-hmm.

Nate Spangle: Uh, on the show talking about Eagle Creek and how it was created because the west side of Indianapolis used to flood and it was one time owned by the city of Speedway and then they transferred.

Oh, I didn't know that. There's some interesting lore about, uh, Speedway. Yeah. And, uh, I did not know that Eagle Creek and the, but we, they flooded that to make that whole area and it's just, it's incredible. Like they damned it up to make it It's beautiful. Yeah. It's so beautiful. We go out there and run.

It's, it's super, super

Marvin Smith: running. And they got zip lining. They got a bird sanctuary in there.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. Do you know that Actually we hosted the NCAA rowing championships Yeah. At Eagle Creek?

Sharon Clark: Yes.

Nate Spangle: A couple of times. Like, that's crazy

Sharon Clark: to

Nate Spangle: me. Like the best East Coast and West Coast rowers are coming to Indianapolis, to Eagle Creek for their rowing championship.

I'm like, that's so cool. That's amazing. Yeah. I love it. That's amazing. Alright. Finally, this is where we get new guest recommendations and learn about other Hoosiers that are doing cool things. Who's a Hoosier? We need to keep on our radar. Someone who's doing big things.

Sharon Clark: Absolutely. Without a doubt. If you haven't had her, you need to get her on.

That's Judith Thomas.

Nate Spangle: Who is Judith Thomas.

Sharon Clark: Oh my gosh. Judith Thomas is a native Hoosier from northern Indiana and came to Indianapolis as has served the city, taken it by storm. She was at the Convention Center, national Federation of High Schools, um, was at the Walker Center, Madam Walker Center.

Nate Spangle: Wow.

Sharon Clark: Um, most recently was the deputy mayor.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Sharon Clark: Um, the city and now is the President and CEO of Indy Arts Council. Like,

Nate Spangle: yeah,

Sharon Clark: like I aspire to keep up with Judith, like just keep up like Right. Like she's everywhere doing everything, but she's a. She is a huge servant to the city of Indianapolis.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. We might need an intro on that one.

Sharon Clark: Yeah, I gotcha.

I gotcha.

Nate Spangle: Judith Thomas. Yeah. Yeah. That's super impressive. Yeah.

Sharon Clark: I'll connect you. She's a Butler grad.

Nate Spangle: Uh, there we go. Yeah. Uh, volleyball player?

Sharon Clark: No, no,

Nate Spangle: no. All deputy mayor of neighborhood engagement of, at the city of Indianapolis.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: Uh, she's actually the local or organizing committee co-chair for the 2026, uh, March.

Like the NCAA tournament, like

Sharon Clark: Hidden Gym, I'm telling you.

Nate Spangle: President of Mar Yeah. Madam Walker Legacy Center.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: We gotta get you though now, the Arts

Sharon Clark: Council.

Nate Spangle: Yeah. Heck yeah. All right. Uh, Marvin, who's who, uh, who do we need to keep on our radar?

Marvin Smith: Uh, my guy Sam from Indy Walking Tours. If you wanna learn more about Sam Sampson.

Yeah. Sampson Beast. Sampson. So, you know Sampson.

Nate Spangle: Oh, you've had him on the

Marvin Smith: show twice about, I about say, yeah. Sampson is so I must have missed that, that episode. Yeah. Sampson is, he makes history fun, right? Yes. You know what I mean? It's just like everybody doesn't like history. That may not be they speed, but just.

His walking tours and how he connects with the neighbors. And I mean, it's funny how he, every tour he does, he knows somebody in the neighborhood, somebody's coming outside, dapping it up, saying hello, giving some history. Uh, I learned so much about the, um. Madam C.J. Walker and the, his Indiana Avenue

Nate Spangle: tour.

Yes,

Marvin Smith: absolutely amazing.

Nate Spangle: He, he does, I would say he is one of the only other people that I've met that like, knows a, a lot of like niche Indiana stuff like I do. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like I used to have like so much useless Hoosier knowledge, but I love it. Sampson, like, we could go, like if there was a jeopardy gist for Hoosiers, it would be like Sampson and I in the finals.

Like, yeah, that'd be great. Cool. Okay. Because we just know so much. He's awesome. He definitely has an energetic style of storytelling, a lot about history and specifically like black history in Indiana. Mm-hmm. Which is super cool. Mm-hmm. Um, I mean, he came on and talked about. Oh my gosh. From Indiana Avenue and Madam C.J. Walker, up to like, just so many different places across the state, not even just in Indianapolis.

Mm-hmm. So, uh, yeah, definitely go on a walking tour. Uh, I think it's Walk and Talk Indy or Sampson Levingston. Mm-hmm. He is, uh, he's a true character.

Sharon Clark: Yeah.

Nate Spangle: He should do a, he he should try to see if you could work with him on a, a northwest.

Sharon Clark: Yes. I need to. Yeah. I want to, I I wanna get him. He did one in Broad Ripple with something about the swimming pool tiles or something at Broad Ripple Park.

Mm-hmm. And I was like, what?

Nate Spangle: So I said this on an episode before. So one where Broad Ripple Park is used to be like a huge like amusement park type thing. Mm. And they had a huge, I think it was the first in ground pool. Yep. Mm-hmm. In the state. Maybe the country, not, maybe not the country, but in the state was in Broad Ripple Pool.

Yep. And it was huge. And so he found the tile for it and you could see like where this was, I saw

Sharon Clark: that one.

Nate Spangle: And, um, people from downtown Indy used to summer in Broad Ripple.

Sharon Clark: Ah.

Nate Spangle: Like, 'cause we were so far Oh yeah. I'm going up to summer in Broad Ripple. It's like I'm driving my horse and buggy up there.

Whatever. It's crazy. He's, he's awesome. Hey y'all, it has been so much fun getting to hang out, getting to learn more about all the amazing work you're doing on the Near Northwest side of Indianapolis. A community that, yeah. Physically kind of got cut off from the rest of the north side of Indianapolis as well as, you know, you think about.

Whether it be transportation or food or education and all these different resources, like they need people like you all in there. Helping partner with them to make an impact, I think is so special, so fun. Amazing to hear about the work you're doing. If people wanna follow along, if they want to go and support, how can they do that?

Sharon Clark: They can certainly go on our website, which is aspirehouse.org. Um, or, or social media, Instagram or Facebook. Um, or they can always just reach out

Nate Spangle: and I would be risk, I have to say this, so this is one of our Nonprofit Spotlight episodes. Mm-hmm. Have to give a huge shout out to our friends at Elements Financial.

Yes. Love that. So Elements helped put this whole thing together. They uh, yeah. They are incredible community partners. You're talking about financial products in the neighborhood. We might have to team up. Elements and Aspire Higher, come together.

Sharon Clark: Absolutely.

Nate Spangle: That could be fun. Yeah, there we go. Absolutely. Well, hey, thank

Sharon Clark: you.

Nate Spangle: Thank you. Appreciate y'all and, and we'll talk soon.

Sharon Clark: Thanks Nate.

Nate Spangle: Alright, that's a wrap on today's Non-Profit Spotlight and I hope you're as fired up as I am about the work being done by amazing leaders right here in Indiana. Big thanks again to Elements Financial for sponsoring the series as a credit union.

They're not-for-profit and built on the idea of empowering individuals to achieve financial success. That's why they've been empowering Hoosiers and folks around the globe for 95 years. They're based in Indy, but they serve members in all 50 states and more than 50 countries. And they're serious about giving back, teaching more than 1,000 financial wellness classes every year, offering volunteer hours and donating 1% of net profits to causes that matter.

So if you're looking for a financial partner that's rooted in purpose and proud to serve, check out elements.org/getin. That's elements.org/getin and use promo code getin Elements Financial, like a bank only better federally insured by NCUA. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time right here on Get IN.