Indianapolis, IN
After years of disuse, St. Peter Claver Center to reopen with food bank, after-school care
Nearly 50 years after it was dedicated as the St. Peter Claver Center, the once-thriving Near Northside building is getting a new lease on life.
Community members, including Trinity Church pastor Kim McCrackin and Marion County Recorder Faith Kimbrough, gathered outside the storied event space at 3110 Sutherland Ave. on a gray afternoon Sept. 13 to publicly commemorate the church’s plans to remodel and reopen the community center as the Trinity Youth and Family Services Center.
From beneath the drumbeat of heavy rain on umbrellas, McCrackin reminisced about the place where she would come to sing, dance and be among friends as a teenager.
“When you came here, baby, you dressed up,” she said.
The St. Peter Claver Center began in 1978 as a meeting space for the Knights and Ladies of St. Peter Claver, the nation’s oldest predominantly Black fraternal organization. For nearly 20 years, the space hosted meetings, dances, fashion shows, banquets, even speaking engagements from the likes Maya Angelou. But after the roughly 25,000-square-foot venue changed hands a few times in the 1990s, including its most recent stint as the Omega Events Center from 1998 to the early 2000s, the building fell into disrepair.
McCrackin, an Indy native who has been a pastor for about 25 years, said she spent nearly three months in 2014 tracking down the Omega Center’s owners in the hopes of purchasing it.
She then established the Indianapolis branch of the predominantly Black, Florida-based Trinity Youth and Family Services, holding church services out of a small auxiliary building on the center’s property while steadily making repairs to the main structure.
There remains much work to be done. McCrackin said Trinity had to essentially gut the building after buying it. Graffiti pocks the exterior brick walls and there is substantial damage to the roof. A sign out front reading “St. Peter Claver Center” has been nearly bent in half. The pastor estimates that in order to completely renovate the building, Trinity will need to raise around $1.5 million.
The ambitious project already has buy-in from Trinity congregant and lifelong Indy resident Brigitte Winters, who remembers coming to the St. Peter Claver Center in her 20s with her friends for dances where beloved local DJ Thomas “Sparkle Soxx” Griffin would spin records deep into the night.
“It was so fly back in the day,” Winters said.
Longtime Indy resident Bessie Manning would frequent the center with other kids from her church, often waiting in a line of cars to get dropped off. She and her husband, George, mourned the loss of a community staple when the backgammon nights and fashion shows stopped, leading to years of neglect.
“I hate that it went downhill,” Bessie said. “If they can get it fixed up, it’ll be real nice.”
With the money Trinity hopes to receive from community donations and grants, McCrackin plans to revive the center with various functions including a food pantry, after-school programs, a playground, a fellowship area and an event space to be rented for different community celebrations, weddings and funerals. If possible, she intends to rent buses to transport food to lower-income residents who can’t come to the Trinity Center.
“We’re gonna go to them,” McCrackin said. “Somebody’s got to treat somebody right at some point.”
After the afternoon ceremony, during which Kimbrough presented McCrackin with the physical deed to the Sutherland Avenue property, the driving rain dried to a slow drip and the 20-some people present began forming a line to fill plates and clamshell boxes with chicken, ribs, goat, macaroni and cheese, salad and green beans.
Among the group was McCrackin’s mother, Doris, an Indy resident of 70 years who used to attend the Claver Center for dances, fashion shows and bingo nights. Doris hopes that under her daughter’s guidance, the community staple that once served them both can do the same for a new generation.
“There’s just so much going on, we just need to get people on the right track,” she said. “If you show them love, maybe you can bring them in.”
Contact dining reporter Bradley Hohulin at bhohulin@indystar.com. You can follow him on Twitter/X @BradleyHohulin and stay up to date with Indy dining news by signing up for the Indylicious newsletter.
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A working mother told News 8 she’s not sure if any candidates have the answers to cost-of-living problems.
Lamia Nelson works as a nurse assistant and has her own home health care business. She also works multiple side gigs. Even with all that, she said she struggles to make ends meet for herself and her three children. Nelson pulled her two younger children out of their charter school and is having them take classes at home so that she can reduce transportation costs and avoid scheduling conflicts with her work.
Nelson said the rent for the home she and her children share has risen from about $900 a month eight years ago to $1,850 per month. She says it’s extremely difficult for working parents like her to properly invest time in their children while at the same time keeping the bills paid.
“Where’s the help here? If parents have to work all day because they need to be able to afford to keep a roof over their head, where are the programs at? Where is the assistance? Where’s the helping hand for single-parent families?” she said. “My kid needs help tutoring in school. I’m at work, I have to pull a double, who’s going to help with that? They’re putting so much money into the highways and streets, why don’t you do some programs for our children?”
Polling data shows she’s not alone. In a survey of about 1,500 voters conducted in February of this year for the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, 37% of respondents said cost of living and affordability issues were the top issue they wanted Congress to address.
The second-highest category, protecting democracy, got top marks from 21%. An Ipsos poll conducted in October logged similar numbers, with 40% of respondents saying cost-of-living issues were their top concern.
According to Ball State University political science Prof. Chad Kinsella, cost-of-living issues dominate every election cycle because they affect every voter every day. Kinsella says voters tend to punish the party in power whenever their costs of living become too great.
President Donald Trump ran on affordability issues in 2024, and Democrats are doing the same thing in 2026. The Consumer Price Index, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ measure of inflation, showed a 3.3% rise in costs for all items in March. Much of that was driven by a 12.5% increase in energy costs driven by oil prices. Those prices spiked as a result of the war with Iran and Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil flows.
“Inflation and, you know, utility, gas prices, grocery prices, and everything, it affects people no matter where they are on the political spectrum,” Kinsella said. “And they’re aware of that. And people care. And so, I think talking about those matters, even if you’re in a primary election, it’s gonna matter.”
Lamia Nelson says gas prices are a problem for her, but rent and utilities are her biggest concerns. Moreover, she says whoever is running for office needs to come up with a plan to bring up worker pay.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average weekly wage in Indiana during the fall of 2025, the most recent quarter for which data is available, was $1,214, compared to $1,459 for the country as a whole.
That works out to about $63,000 per year in Indiana. Indiana’s minimum wage is tied to the federal minimum wage, which has been set at $7.25 per hour since 2009. The minimum wage would have to rise to $11.10 per hour to offset inflation since then.
“They need to focus on the rent prices, and I feel like the rent and utilities go hand in hand, and they need to focus on the pay. People cannot survive with these types of pay rates employers are giving. It’s ridiculous,” Nelson.
Nelson says cost-of-living issues are far and away her top issue when she goes into the voting booth, but says she doesn’t have high hopes about the candidates currently on the ballot.
“Of course, you’re going to want to go with who’s going to help us, but who is going to help us, in reality?” she said.
Early voting runs through May 4. Primary Day itself is on May 5. Click here to find out how to vote and check your voter registration.
Indianapolis, IN
South Bend prepares for ‘The Greatest Spectacle in Racing’ at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) – South Bend is officially in “This is May” mode.
The Tire Rack’s corporate headquarters on Wednesday night was one of the race themed community events popping up across Indiana ahead of the Indy 500.
It is all part of the buildup to the 110th running of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” on May 24 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Organizers say the point is simple, get people together, decorate, and have fun.
Across the state, you will start seeing checkered flags, black and white drapes and homemade race day decor on porches and at businesses.
“When you say Indianapolis 500, you say Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it has Indianapolis in the name, but it really is an Indiana asset. The reason it is getting ready to have its 110th running of the Indy 500 is because of the way this entire state has embraced it,” said Doug Boles president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Indy Car series. “The Indianapolis 500 and the Speedway is responsible for about $1.1 billion in economic impact across our state.”
In South Bend, it is a reminder that you do not have to be in Indianapolis to feel the buzz.
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INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (WSBT) — We are just over a month away from one of the biggest events in racing.
Preparations are underway for the Indianapolis 500.
Street signs are being unveiled in Indianapolis, one for each of the IndyCar drivers.
Those drivers were on hand to help hang their own sign.
“It’s like the first tradition that kind of kicks off the month of May for us internally. So yeah, I’m excited. I’m excited to hit the track soon and see how the cars feel this year,” said Alex Palou, four-time IndyCar Series champion
All signs will be up by the end of the week.
The big race is Sunday, May 24th.
You can watch the 110th running over on FOX Michiana.
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