Edna Martin Christian Center: Serving the Martindale-Brightwood community for 85 years
Five years ago, Tiffney Norris faced a series of significant challenges.
After her brother died, Tiffney found herself in and out of work, her finances unstable. She didn’t know where she’d find her next meal.
She was searching for stability, community, someone to talk to.
“Edna Martin became that place for me and my family,” Tiffney said.
At Edna Martin Christian Center, Tiffney found safe and nurturing child care for her son. She found counseling following the loss of her brother. Coaches connected her with essential resources to meet her basic needs, including food from the pantry, rental assistance and gas cards for transportation to and from job interviews.
Through Edna Martin’s programming and coaching, Tiffney learned money management, worked on her resume, conducted mock interviews and built her workforce skills.
It all led to where she is now: In November 2025, Tiffney started a new job as Edna Martin’s food security manager. She now runs the pantry that once helped her.
“I’m able to come in and give back and do something that I’m passionate about and serve the communities and the families that once helped me when I was going through a really rough time,” Tiffney said. “It’s kind of like a full circle moment for me, because I get to ... lead with compassion and meet people where they are without judgement, and just make sure that they’re seen and heard like I once needed, upon a time.”
For more than eight decades, Edna Martin Christian Center has served as an anchor of the Martindale-Brightwood community in Indianapolis, wrapping around families with programs and services to ensure everyone has access to resources and supports not just to live, but to thrive. The nonprofit serves about 3,500 to 4,000 people directly each year, although the indirect impact is believed to be much wider, said Barato Britt, Edna Martin’s president and CEO.
“After operating for 85 years, they are so deeply entwined in this community, I’m not sure it could exist without an organization like Edna Martin,” said Michael McKillip, United Way’s impact senior director of infrastructure. “The services, the trust that they have is almost indescribable within the community.”
Edna Martin and United Way of Central Indiana have worked together for more than 20 years, since Edna Martin became an accredited community-based organization with United Way in 2004. The two organizations have partnered in all four of United Way’s focus areas: basic needs, early care and learning, economic mobility, and safe and affordable housing.
“The relationship that we’re blessed to have with United Way is so much more than just a transactional one that people may see on a report or a grant being funded,” Britt said. “It’s so much deeper than that.”
A core part of Martindale-Brightwood
Edna Martin was founded in 1941 and celebrates its 85th anniversary this year.
The nonprofit’s mission is to invest in the lives of all in the Martindale-Brightwood community through holistic, comprehensive and community-driven programs designed to foster a vision of hope, Britt said.
The 46218 zip code in which Martindale-Brightwood is located has the highest percentage of households living in or near poverty in Marion County, according to United Way data. About 70% of households are in poverty or are considered ALICE, meaning they earn above the Federal Poverty Level but not enough to afford the basics. ALICE is an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.
Britt stressed that Edna Martin’s work is informed by, and done in partnership with, the community.
The neighborhood has been challenged by significant disinvestment or investment done without residents’ support, knowledge or notification, Britt said. “Our work is to serve the community, not to tell or prescribe to community what it needs.”
Edna Martin surveys its clients to understand the areas of greatest need. Residents’ top concern: support with basic needs, including emergency assistance and help with food, utilities and transportation, said Maggie Goeglein, Edna Martin’s chief operating officer.
Community members have said workforce development, including career coaching, financial coaching and homeownership pathways are among the most important programs, followed closely by youth programs and youth employment services, Goeglein said.
Edna Martin serves the community from two locations, its primary building at 37 Place and its Leadership and Legacy Campus.
Located inside a century-old former IPS school, 37 Place is home to Edna Martin’s emergency assistance department and food pantry, programs for expectant families and those with young children, and adult programming, including the Center for Working Families.
At the Leadership and Legacy Campus, Edna Martin hosts its 2Gen (short for “two generation”) programming, including its early childhood program, preschool, school-aged youth programs and senior programs. The campus is also home to the Henry Blair Farm and Garden, a one-acre farm and raised-bed garden. Produce grown there is distributed through the food pantry. Edna Martin shares the site with KIPP Indy Legacy High School.
“The legacy that we hope to continue to leave and have left throughout these years is Edna Martin, as an agency, is a core part of the neighborhood. We’re not coming from the outside and deciding what everybody needs,” Goeglein said. “We take our cues from the neighbors and our interactions with them and walk alongside on their journey.”
Partnering to serve
Serving the community is shared work.
No single organization can do it alone, without collaboration, Britt said.
Partnerships – including Edna Martin’s designation as a home mission of American Baptist Churches and its accreditation with United Way – are essential. Britt said United Way provides a “comprehensive battery of resources and access to support that we need to do our jobs well.”
That includes not only funding, but connection with United Way staff, peers and nonprofit partners who share knowledge in a community of best practice.
“It’s impossible to look at the work that we or other [community-based organizations] are able to do without recognizing that our ability to do that is in large part to being centrally connected to such an important agency like United Way,” Britt said.
Because of partnerships, Edna Martin can serve more students through early childhood education and school-aged programs, provide workforce development programs that lead to financial stability, and build a comprehensive system of supports around multiple generations within the same household, Britt said.
“United Way has really been pivotal for us as we’ve grown,” Goeglein said. “... Edna Martin has benefited from our partnership with United Way both in how we’re able to serve people but also as an organization. United Way has just been a really supportive partner in helping us grow and take the next step.”
Shannon Jenkins, United Way’s vice president of impact, said United Way works with Edna Martin in three key ways: as a funding partner, thought partner and community partner.
United Way funding, including the Basic Needs and Family Opportunity funds, supports operations and programs that help families with education, employment, financial stability, access to healthy food, safe and affordable housing, transportation and health services.
United Way partners with Edna Martin for the Center for Working Families, which uses one-on-one coaching to guide people – including Tiffney – on a personalized path toward financial stability. Over the years, the two nonprofits also have partnered for ReadUP and early childhood education programming.
As thought partner, Jenkins said, Edna Martin listens to the community, brings ideas and solutions to the table, and collaborates to build programs that are meaningful and sustainable for the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood.
And as a community partner, Edna Martin works with United Way and other nonprofits to develop systems-level solutions that help people across the region.
In 2025, United Way began partnering with Edna Martin, John Boner Neighborhood Centers and Southeast Community Services – collectively known as the IndyEast Economic Mobility District – in a new way, to fund and expand guaranteed income programming in Indianapolis.
Under this model, participants receive regular, unrestricted payments to be used at their discretion to meet the needs of their household. The three community centers piloted such a program with 15 families from 2022 to 2024. Through partnership with United Way, this new initiative will serve 125 households.
“Because of this partnership with United Way and their support and kind of getting us all around the table, now we’re able to do it for a much larger group of people,” Goeglein said. “That’s a good example of how the community centers can really keep the voice of the neighbors at the table. But then the amplification that happens with our partnership with United Way is just really, really profound.”
United Way’s goal is to distance 10,000 families from poverty by 2028, work that is done in partnership with nonprofits across the region. As of December 2025, nearly 200 households supported by Edna Martin saw an income increase of 65% or more, an “incredible achievement,” Jenkins said.
“Edna Martin is a critical partner for United Way,” she said. “... We rely on partners who work in community, work on the front lines with community, and are really dedicated to meeting residents where they are and understanding what the needs are of that particular community. We cannot, nor should we, do that alone.”
Another key way in which United Way has supported Edna Martin: infrastructure funding.
Funded by Lilly Endowment Inc., United Way offers its accredited partners access to four funds – Capital Projects, Small Capital Projects, Facilities Maintenance and Technology – to help with infrastructure needs.
United Way has provided Edna Martin with funding from all four funds in recent years as they’ve been on a decade-long journey to acquire, renovate and transform 37 Place.
To restore the century-old building, that meant roof and structural repairs, removal of masonry and an old incinerator, a technology overhaul, asbestos remediation, new HVAC systems and replacing old plumbing. When Edna Martin acquired the building, there was an estimated $3 million in deferred maintenance, McKillip said.
United Way brought experts to the table and provided 50% of the Capital Projects funding.
In spring 2026, as construction moved closer to completion, more than 40% of the building’s 52,000 square feet were under renovation.
“No nonprofit service organization can serve clients without a safe, functional, heated, cooled building – a building that’s accessible for people of all abilities,” McKillip said. “We are the only fund I am aware of in the state of Indiana that offers the level of infrastructure funding that we offer. There’s nowhere else for a nonprofit organization to go when their 100-year-old boiler fails, or when the roof opens up and pours water into their child care center. These are all things that we take for granted until they fail.
“We want our accredited partners to be the experts at helping people live the lives they’re capable of living – and to rely on and to use the resources that we have to help them maintain the things that no one sees but that are critical to provide services.”
McKillip said United Way’s nonprofit partners are the region’s safety net for vulnerable populations.
“The Edna Martin organizations of Central Indiana are the heartbeat of the work that we do,” he said.
'Step through the door’
When Tiffney began going to Edna Martin five years ago, she felt heard and understood. They met her where she was, helped her find a clear vision of her goals – and pushed her to reach them.
Today, Tiffney no longer worries about food insecurity. She feels financially stable and is working toward a new goal: homeownership.
Carter, her 7-year-old, attended daycare and preschool at Edna Martin and now goes to KIPP Indy. The stability Tiffney gained has allowed him to thrive, she said. She can see it in his free, energetic spirit – a spirit that mirrors her own.
Tiffney said her life experiences have shaped who she is and the way she now serves others. In her role as Edna Martin’s food security manager, she builds relationships with community members, ensures access to healthy food and organizes food distributions.
She tells everyone she meets they are welcome at Edna Martin.
“Come in and become one of our families, be one of our neighbors,” Tiffney said. “Once you step inside these doors, you’ll see that there’s so many opportunities for you to grow as a parent, as a community member, as a person.
“Just take that step through the door so you can flourish like I did.”
This story appears in United Way of Central Indiana’s 2025-2026 annual report.
