The end of the year is an excellent time to look back at what the organization achieved this year. As we roll into the end of the year I want to share with you the long list of accomplishments the executive committee and volunteers made happen in 2025. A big thanks to everyone who made all this happen!
Neighborhood activities and events:
Partnering with Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, we held three neighborhood cleanups this year, including a new event in July with the use of a packer truck.
We held a successful community yard sale with 23 households registering to be on the Emerson Heights yard sale map.
We had a fun National Night Out with many residents hosting neighbor gatherings and EHCO officers distributing ice-cream through out the neighborhood. The event was attended by the prosecutor’s office, the mayor’s office, police department, and our City-County Councilor.
We held a very successful Emerson Heights Day with face painting, kids activities, and where 72 hot dogs were consumed by residents and guests.
Community Meeting Speaker Series
We continued our Speaker Series at our meetings hosting speakers from organizations relevant to the community, including:
- Indygo on the Blue Line rapid bus project;
- DPW on the Michigan 2-way conversion updates;
- Indy Neighborhood Cats on the Trap-Neuter-Release program;
- representatives from Ellenberger Park and the Irvington Library;
- Westminster’s Food Pantry/Soup Kitchen and programs;
- Alex Richards on the Trusted Mentors;
- Amber Quinn from Soul Food Project Indy;
- Citizens Energy Group talked about their residential Lead Service
Line Replacement program; and, - FACE Low-Cost Animal Clinic and the Spay It Forward fund. Committee accomplishments:
Newsletters & Welcome Letters
We distributed the 4 issues of the paper newsletter (including this one) with the help of 13 regular volunteers and 3 new ones.
Dick Kraimer, chair of the Welcome Committee, continued to send out letters to new property owners. Dick passed away recently so we need volunteers to continue his work welcoming new residents.
TNR
The Emerson Heights Neighborhood Cats group trapped, fixed, and vaccinated 83 neighborhood cats!
Other Accomplishments
Facebook has over 2.5k members with new requests daily. The E-newsletter has had an increase in subscribers and an open rate of about 50%.
The Executive Committee members continued the yard sign project putting out signs to advertise our meetings and events.
The Halloween Decorating Contest was fun and we’re planning on another Christmas Decorating Contest too.
City services:
We reported an overflowing manhole at Michigan and Carlye to Councilor Jesse Brown and to our Citizens contact. The issue has since been resolved.
We got DPW to address the sinkhole forming in the Bancroft/Emerson alley which resulted in the alley also getting repaved.
We worked with Councilor Brown and DPW to have a collapsed area of pavement filled in the alley between Linwood, Dequincy and 10th.
We repeatedly engaged the city services on the hoarding and trash situation at the corner of Walnut and Carlyle, and it has greatly improved.
We reported the local porch pirate to Community Police Officer Stacy Riojas who is working on the case, and the pirating seems to have abated.
Grant projects:
We put up neighborhood signs along the streets that comprise the borders of our neighborhood, and we put up signs on Michigan street facing both west and east.
We sold the old aluminum neighborhood sign after having a new sign installed at Dequincy and 10th.
We received a grant from Indy Arts Council to complete the Signal Box Art Project we started in 2023.
Administration:
We sold quite a few Emerson Heights shirts and house signs throughout the year.
We ordered more shirts because we ran out of XL and XXL.
We shifted accounts to a new bank and computerized our ledger.
Continued to improve the website by adding the newsletters, adding the yearly schedule, We added google analytics to the EHCO website. As of today it reports that we’ve had over 1,000 users visit the website this year.
Continued to attend meetings of partner organizations like Near East Side Community Organization.
Honestly, I may have missed something. With everything going on there should be ways for all our neighbors to feel like they are a part of a thriving community. If you have ideas for the neighborhood or if you feel like you can help with the many projects, please let me know at president@emersonheights.org. And if you see one of the committee members around please thank them for their efforts this year.