rooted. | issue 1
RETURN ON COMMUNITY GROUNDWORKS INDY
ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY AS COMMUNITY CARE
Advocacy, Environmental Care, and Aging With Dignity in Riverside In Riverside, community advocacy is deeply tied to care for people and place. Groundworks Indy works alongside residents to protect neighborhood health, strengthen civic voice, and ensure that long time neighbors, especially seniors, can remain in the community they helped build. Located in the Riverside area of Indianapolis, the organization centers advocacy that responds to lived conditions versus abstract policy goals. Their work reflects a belief that safety, stability, and belonging are foundational to community well being. Riverside is a neighborhood with deep history and strong social ties, as well as ongoing environmental and development pressures. For many senior residents, these pressures are felt most acutely. Changes to infrastructure, environmental conditions, and housing can quickly become barriers to remaining safely at home. Groundworks Indy approaches this reality through proximity and trust. By listening to residents, especially elders who have lived in Riverside for decades, the organization helps surface concerns that may otherwise go unaddressed. A central focus of Groundworks Indy’s work has been supporting conditions that allow senior residents to age at home with dignity. This includes advocacy around housing stability, environmental safety, and neighborhood conditions that directly affect daily life. Rather than relocating elders away from their community networks, the work prioritizes keeping people connected to familiar places, neighbors, and support systems. Environmental safety is inseparable from this work. By supporting residents in organizing around environmental safety, the organization reinforces that clean air, safe land, and healthy surroundings are not luxuries. They are essential to sustaining life and well being in the neighborhood. Through long standing relationships in Riverside, Wildstyle has helped amplify resident voices, support organizing efforts, and reinforce the importance of community led advocacy that centers elders and environmental justice. In fact, advocacy on behalf of Wildstyle and The Learning Tree helped create the opportunity for the organization to move into the pictured new location, a fire house in the heart of Riverside. This support reflects a shared commitment to protecting both people and place, recognizing that culture, history, and health are interconnected. This supports efforts that strengthen connection, reduce isolation, and affirm dignity. This is a return on community.
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