In the wake of the 2023 mass shooting at a neighborhood block party, residents of the Industry Neighborhood began coming together to support one another and process the impact of the violence. Located just southeast of downtown Muncie, Indiana, the Industry Neighborhood is a predominantly Black community with a rich history, strong relationships, and deep cultural roots. Community members have long navigated the effects of disinvestment and the loss of shared spaces, including a former community center, which has contributed to increased isolation in recent years. Building on residents’ leadership and commitment to one another, Habitat for Humanity of Greater Muncie partnered with neighbors to support efforts that strengthen connection and create space for collective healing.
Neighbors, young people, police, entrepreneurs, and local leaders often operate in separate circles that misunderstand each other, leading to severed relationships and distrust. The community set out to change this with the creation of HANDS (Helping All Neighbors Discover Safety), a community group formed with support from Habitat for Humanity of Greater Muncie to reconnect the neighbors. Created two years prior to the Team Up grant, HANDS works to build relationships, coordinate youth programs, provide resources, and lay the foundation for healing, collaboration, and long-term change. To do this, HANDS brings together residents, organizations, and partners, including the Muncie YMCA, the Human Library, and the Muncie Police Department, to tackle systemic challenges such as neighborhood disinvestment and broken trust and relationships within the community.
HANDS’ collaborative vision came to life in summer 2025 through a series of hands-on activities and community events focused on rebuilding trust and providing opportunities to connect, especially for local youth. From the POP Shop Youth Showcase and neighborhood cookouts to the Youth Bridgebuilding Workshop, HANDS gave young people and adults safe spaces to connect, collaborate, and lead. These weren’t just events — they were opportunities to practice showing up, listening, and building something together.
As a result, new relationships were formed across generational, racial, neighborhood, and even police-to-community divides. People, young and old, felt more confident engaging with local leaders. Organizations began working together in new ways. Law enforcement, nonprofits, universities, and community groups came together around a shared commitment to a specific neighborhood and its youth. By creating space for connection and lifting up community voices, the Industry Neighborhood is proving that strong relationships lay the foundation for a stronger future by giving the community ownership over its future.
The Industry Neighborhood, located southeast of downtown Muncie, Indiana, is home to roughly 1,300 of Muncie’s 65,000 residents. Half the residents own homes and half rent. The Industry Neighborhood is full of multi-generational families, churches, and local businesses, with a rich culture and history that reflect its resilience and help shape residents’ identity. Unfortunately, years of institutional neglect and underinvestment in the neighborhood have left a large portion of the community sitting empty: an estimated 40 acres. The closing of the community’s youth center, which was never rebuilt despite city promises that it would be, left a deep legacy of pain and lack of after-school and weekend activities for the community’s young people.
The new slate of activities for young people and community-building events didn’t happen alone — it was made possible through collaboration with a strong network of local partners. Volunteers from inside and outside the community pitched in through hands-on work, supported fun and safe programs for young neighbors, and shared valuable training to help everyone make the most of the summer.
The following partners play a key role in enriching the project:
HANDS leaders and participating residents got started by meeting biweekly for two years, focusing on creating a safe and trusting environment for partners who had not previously worked together. Trust was built over time through shared meals, regular meetings, showing up at neighborhood association gatherings, and investing in relationships before any events happened.
The HANDS group collectively brainstormed, planned, and chose initiatives based on what they knew the neighborhood needed most, focusing on creating opportunities for youth and supporting neighborhood safety, especially in light of the mass shooting that had recently devastated the community. Training opportunities, for example, were a stated desire of the group itself, which is why sending members to the community development conference was prioritized. The Youth Bridgebuilding Workshop formalized the previous trust-building work by bringing youth into direct dialogue with police, organizational leaders, and each other, creating a structured space for voices that don’t typically get heard alongside those who hold power.
Community voice shaped the specific form each project took. The POP Shop event was deliberately held at the site of a mass shooting because neighbors felt strongly about reclaiming that space and changing its narrative. The Youth With A Future back-to-school event addressed the specific, practical gap of kids who couldn’t afford haircuts or new clothes before the first day of school. The Young Entrepreneur Launchpad gave youth a public stage to showcase businesses they had actually built, with real scholarship dollars attached.
With the Team Up grant and additional support from Habitat for Humanity of Greater Muncie, HANDS took its work to the next level by convening a network of local partners to host a youth-focused community celebration, including a cookout and other fun activities before school started. The events and activities created safe spaces for kids and adults to connect, strengthening neighborhood ties and providing long-term support for safety initiatives.
The Team Up Project’s support for HANDS and Habitat Muncie took place over the course of a year:
| Capacity Building & Community Engagement | A Neighborhood Connector coordinated HANDS operations, partnerships, and outreach, while biweekly meetings and engagement strengthened relationships and clarified youth safety and programming priorities. |
| Strategic Planning & Learning | The HANDS group completed strategic and annual planning to equip staff and volunteers with skills, frameworks, and knowledge needed to design and implement effective bridgebuilding initiatives. Three staff members attended the Team Up Learning Cohort in Chicago to strengthen bridgebuilding skills and spark new ideas for creating meaningful, engaging programs for the community. |
| Program Design & Preparation | Partners used regular meetings to plan youth-focused summer events, coordinate volunteers, and take care of all the behind-the-scenes details that bring the community programs to life. |
| Implementation, Reflection & Adaptation | Summer programming unfolded across the neighborhood, followed by group debriefs to reflect on outcomes and identify improvements for future bridgebuilding efforts. |
Programming throughout the summer offered community members opportunities to reconnect and imagine a new chapter for their beloved neighborhood. Several of these gatherings intentionally took place in locations impacted by the mass shooting two years earlier, reflecting the community’s commitment to changing the narrative from violence to unity, safety, and celebration of youth. HANDS’ community events brought together seemingly unlikely groups within the neighborhood, including longtime residents, young people, law enforcement, community organizations, entrepreneurs, and institutional partners such as Ball State University, demonstrating the power of collaboration to bridge differences and strengthen relationships. Collaborative processes that allowed everyone to meaningfully participate in planning and implementation enabled HANDS to navigate the challenges that come with limited resources and managing partners with different perspectives and needs.
Ongoing reflection and community feedback played an important role in Habitat for Humanity of Greater Muncie’s understanding of the impact of its efforts. HANDS used virtual surveys, reflection forms, and informal post-event conversations to understand which activities were most meaningful to youth and families. Every two weeks, leaders hit pause to step back and gauge what was actually meeting the community’s needs. This check-in helped them address small issues as they arose, celebrate wins, and make sure the next round of programs was even better.
Staff and volunteers responded well to community-driven, relationship-based planning, which helped them manage the lingering trauma from the mass shooting two years prior and navigate limited resources after government restructuring. Participants found that training and programs, such as grief support, safety workshops, and emergency response skills, helped create environments for healing, building resilience, and strengthening neighborhood connections.
Breaking Barriers, Building Legacies business panel at Unity Fest 2025.
In the summer of 2025, the Industry Neighborhood came alive with bounce houses, games and youth talent showcases. Throughout the summer, HANDS led a series of youth-focused community events designed to promote neighborhood safety, cultivate connection, and foster opportunity in the Industry Neighborhood:
The summer activities and events drew 1,450 participants to celebrate youth, forge new connections and strengthen neighborhood pride. A team of 62 volunteers made the activities and events possible, helping with set-up, facilitating activities, distributing resources, supervising youth programming, and assisting with event logistics. HANDS’s Neighborhood Connector, Habitat for Humanity of Greater Muncie’s Director of Community Engagement, and volunteer coordinators guided the effort, providing hands-on support and oversight at every step. Community partners, including the Muncie YMCA, Muncie Police Department, and the Human Library, were crucial to the success of the summer.
The Team Up Project sees differences as a strength. Using a Respect–Relate–Cooperate framework, programs can encourage participants to engage across differences around a common goal or value by respecting others’ identities and perspectives, building mutually positive relationships, and working together across backgrounds on shared concerns.
Muncie Police Dept. Community Engagement Officer, Muncie Human Library Director, Muncie Habitat Neighborhood Connector, and youth participants from the Bridgebuilding Workshop hosted in partnership with the Muncie YMCA.
HANDS Group members at the NAACP Banquet.
Central to Habitat for Humanity’s work is a commitment to affirming the dignity of every person — a belief that everyone deserves a safe, stable, and affordable place to call home. This mission is carried out by bringing neighbors, volunteers, and future homeowners together to build not just houses, but stronger, more connected communities where each person feels valued and supported.
Rather than simply hosting events, HANDS and its partners brought the community together through a variety of interactive experiences. The programs and activities were designed to spark relationships across differences, connecting youth, neighbors, local leaders, and organizations to strengthen trust and collaboration.
What made these events especially memorable was how they turned ordinary neighborhood spaces into vibrant hubs of possibility. Streets and parks that once felt empty or unsafe became stages for creativity, learning, and celebration, leaving a lasting sense of pride and ownership throughout the community.
Summer 2025 was all about connection, trust, and youth empowerment in the Industry Neighborhood. HANDS brought together youth, neighbors, volunteers, and local partners for cookouts, bridgebuilding workshops, talent showcases, and entrepreneurship events, with a goal of creating safe, fun spaces where the community could come together.
Feedback from participants and volunteers indicated that both community members and program volunteers were building stronger relationships and growing trust. New volunteer roles and improved planning processes helped HANDS and Habitat for Humanity work more efficiently and reach more people.
Over several months, these trainings and activities revealed that some of the most powerful partnerships came from unexpected places, organizations, and individuals who wouldn’t normally cross paths. By bringing them together and planning carefully, the project unlocked new ideas, resources, and energy that amplified the impact of every event and strengthened the community in ways no single group could have done alone. This model demonstrates how residents, supported by local organizations like Habitat for Humanity of Greater Muncie, can come together to help their communities thrive — even in communities that have long been overlooked and under-resourced.
Summer 2025 taught HANDS a lot about what makes community programming successful. Strong relationships, built over years of meetings and conversations, were the foundation for every event, and connecting with unlikely partners opened doors to new ideas and audiences.
Planning ahead, down to the smallest details, made events run smoothly. While juggling paid staff and volunteers was trickier than expected, clear communication, budgeting, and outlining expectations early in the process made unforeseen issues easier to handle.
HANDS and Habitat for Humanity laid the groundwork for lasting change by taking the time to debrief after each event, listen to feedback, and embed these practices into ongoing planning. They built a replicable model for engaging youth and rebuilding trust in disinvested neighborhoods. With intentional bridgebuilding and adaptive planning, this approach can be tailored by other organizations to support meaningful community engagement in a variety of settings.
A community group formed to reconnect the neighbors, which already met on a regular basis, played a key leadership role in planning and executing this project. Building on their existing collaboration, the HANDS group provided deep community knowledge and logistical support that helped make the events successful.
To bring the community together after a tragic mass shooting two years prior, Habitat for Humanity of Greater Muncie and the HANDS group hosted an event in the same location with safe, family-friendly activities to chart a new path forward, rather than continuing to focus on past violence.
The support, contributions, and participation of local businesses were integral to the success of the community programming. It’s an example of non-traditional partners that can contribute to a program’s success.
The HANDS activities were a strong counter-narrative to the historic disinvestment that the Industry Neighborhood faced, by helping mitigate the effects of historic disinvestment in the area.
The Team Up grant supported training for the HANDS group, equipping them to continue their community-focused work with a more intentional, bridgebuilding-centered approach.
The success of the community events and programs relied heavily on the large number of volunteers and their active involvement.
Participant feedback collected through virtual surveys after events informed future programming.
