2023 Top Memories “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson YOU, our community, helped make each day in 2023 the best day of the year! Our staff wanted to share a few memorable......
Garden Party Last chance to pre-order your tickets! If you haven’t yet, please reserve your tickets for our annual fundraiser: tomorrow, October 21st, at the JTV Hill Center. 1806 Columbia Ave Indianapolis, IN 46202 As a reminder, we have an exciting weekend of events! Tomorrow night, October 21st (6-8......
“The first wealth is health.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson Medical Nutrition Mid-Summer Update Last week was our final week in camp. We have a lot of exciting photos and events to share in the coming weeks about our partnerships, but I wanted to take a moment......
“Every moment is a fresh beginning.” ― T.S. Eliot Start of Summer Camp 2023 We are officially in the thick of our busiest time of the year: CAMP! This marks Week 3 and we have been enjoying all of the activities so far and getting......
“The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.” ― Coretta Scott King Summer Program Registration Do you know any 9th-12th grade students from Marion & surrounding counties? Can you believe it’s already time for our summer program registration? We......
“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like?”… “It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden FHC In The News Happy Spring Break to our area students! We are excited......
End of Year 2022 2022 In Review You helped make our year at the Felege Hiywot Center incredible. We wanted to share our favorite memories with you. “My favorite moment was visiting Fair Oaks Farm. Road trips are always fun, but the best part......
Giving Tuesday Can you help us this Giving Tuesday? Our goal at the Felege Hiywot Center is to raise $5,000 between now and the end of the year! Can you help us achieve that goal? This year, our cornerstone program, the Rise Initiative, has helped elevate......
“Summer will end soon enough, and childhood will as well.” ― George R.R. Martin Midsummer update! I hope you have been having a lovely summer. I wanted to share an update on what our students have been doing so far this summer. I have been quietly......
“If people did not love one another, I really don’t see what use there would be in having any spring.” ― Victor Hugo Spring Break was last week for local students. Our students were so excited to be able to take a tour at Purdue University,......
“I remember, as a boy of 17 years of age, this was a fascinating thing for me: how we human beings breathe out carbon dioxide into the air, the leaves of plants pick this carbon dioxide up, and the plant gives off oxygen, which we......
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.” ― T.S. Eliot Our students’ reflections on a year of growth At this time last year, I couldn’t have predicted what 2021 would bring. Thanks to you– our dear......
Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer.” ― Maya Angelou Rise students are seen and heard out in the community! Even though our Rise Program has only been in swing since the start of October, we have already......
“Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.” –Rudyard Kipling FHC is prepped and ready thanks to Lilly Global Day of Service! Since 2008, Lilly employees have volunteered in local communities for their annual “Lilly Global Day of Service.”......
Week 3 Theme: Ecology Week 4 Theme: Environment Would you want M&Ms in your Chex Mix? What if it came to a group decision? Well, the Indiana Farm Bureau and Marion County Farm Bureau came and illustrated how sometimes we must make concessions and the......
Turning bug infestations into an experiment “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein As many of you know, my background is environmental science. My pre-FHC career was as a researcher in the field. The scientific method has......
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed. It is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead First, thank you for sharing in our joy over the news of our Rise Initiative grant from the Lilly......
Felege Hiywot Center Receives $2 Million Enhancing Opportunity Grant from Lilly Endowment in Indianapolis Contact: Aster Bekele aster.bekele@felegehiywot.org 317.847.8976 April 1, 2021 INDIANAPOLIS – Felege Hiywot Center has received a grant of $2 million from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its initiative, Enhancing Opportunity in Indianapolis.......
Aster Bekele just wanted to teach students in Indianapolis, Indiana about science. During her 26 years working at Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Indianapolis, she had tried various ways of teaching with little success. First, they tried doing lunch time classes where......
Felege Hiywot Center (FHC) has received a $54,000 grant through the Youth Program Resilience Fund of Lilly Endowment Inc. FHC will use the grant to provide learning support interspersed with healthy eating and physical activity to students residing at New Bridge Apartments, located in......
At FHC we use a tool we developed called Real Talk to discuss what is going well and what needs improvement. From 2004-2013 the discussions were based on developing the youth to be community leaders. Discussions were focused on individual as well as team based......
We want to say thank you to Universal Roofing for blessing us by fixing our roof. There was so much damage and water leaking and Universal Roofing truly made a difference for us at The Felege Hiywot Center. We are so grateful for the wonderful......
Day One We started off with a good few hours of working in the garden. We weeded and we put tomato stakes in the ground so we could prepare for the planting of tomatoes. One of our teams (yellow team) moved beds from under our......
Day 1 Today was our first day getting all of our new students and introducing them to different topics that we would go over at our camp. We started with a circle up and we got to know new things about each other like what......
This past month we were excited to have one of our Youth Farm Leaders, Naomi Davis, host her Beautification Capstone Project by partnering with the Felege Hiywot Center and Keep Indianapolis Beautiful. Naomi Davis has been an active youth with us since she was in......
This past weekend we had the opportunity to have a booth at Congressman Carson’s Youth Opportunities Fair held at the Indianapolis Central Library from 12pm – 7pm. The lobby of the library was taken over by various local organizations offering youth jobs, internships and volunteer......
Today FHC presented a workshop at Neighbor Power Indy 2019. What is Neighbor Power Indy? “Convened by INRC, in partnership with the City of Indianapolis, Neighbor Power Indy brings together hundreds of neighborhood residents, community leaders, business owners, nonprofits, corporate partners, government staff and elected......
In honor of Black History Month we decided to share our trip to Ethiopia in discussion format with the students of FHC and members of the community. We invited Darye Henry, CTO of Developer Town, Founder of After School HQ and son of our founder......
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Every year Indianapolis hosts the Indy International Festival at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. It’s an amazing event every year that you can attend with your entire family! Travel the world in just a few steps by visiting different booths to learn more about different religions, cultures,......
Every year The Felege Hiywot Center has a Thanksgiving dinner where we invite the community to sit down and break bread together. This year the students kicked the party off by sharing what they are thankful for. While the students were working Terrence and the......
So what is The Super Service Challenge? Founded in 2011, the Super Service Challenge is a nationwide movement to transform organizations through service. Driven by the idea people and teams grow stronger when they join together to serve, the Challenge encourages volunteerism, sharing stories of......
Have you ever heard of PreEnact? Here is a little bit about it from the PreEnact team themselves: “PreEnactment theater envisions a neighborhood that OUGHT to be—just, equitable, and economically vibrant. Our stage is an entire three blocks of 16th Street. From the Monon to......
We finally finished the seven week summer program at Felege Hiywot! During the last week of the camp students presented their long term projects with IUPUI CEES interns. For our long term project we decided to “test out the effects of different lights sources on......
Did you know that Indy Parks food programs provide hundreds of thousands of meals each year to youth in Marion County and more than one million meals during the SummerServings meal program? Well there is a new initiative called Farm to Fork that will provide......
We have some exciting news! During the fifth week our students were able to experience the chickens hatch at our community urban garden. So far we have five colorful and cute chicks. The students enjoyed holding and petting the chickens. Some of our students even......
This week the summer program students finished the program with Photographer and Story Teller, Paul Best. This year the photography camp focused dealing with trauma. Our students made coping collages with magazine pages. Our summer program students loved being able to express themselves through the......
This week at our community urban garden has been bountiful. wWe have so much produce ready to be harvested! We have kale, collards, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers ready to go. The students at our summer program were able to work with IUPUI CEES interns and......
Week One: Plant Growth and Development Our community urban garden at The Felege Hiywot Center just kicked off the first few weeks of the 7-week long summer program. Our students have already started making a community impact by working at Unity Park alongside members of......
For the past several months we’ve been working hard on the Eli Lilly Arts and Culture Grant with several wonderful partners. Together we have developed a wonderful sense of excitement and vision towards building a better local community together. After the submission was in we......
Today the Felege Hiywot Center Youth had the wonderful opportunity to attend the 2018 Indianapolis Youth Empowerment Summit put on by Teach for America Indianapolis hosted at Indianapolis University Purdue University Indianapolis. The purpose of the summit is to help students become leaders of tomorrow within their personal......
Today the Felege Hiywot Youth and Farm leaders visited the Indy Urban Acres to learn more about quality in farming. “Indy Urban Acres, a project of the Indianapolis Parks Foundation, is a collection of four organic farms used to empower and educate people by providing......
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much” – Helen Keller Bringing generations together is hugely important to the success of any community. The Martindale – Brightwood community happens to be a very multi-generational community which is why we are so......
Today was a special day! We always love when our wonderful volunteers come join us at Felege Hiywot. Today Eli Lilly employees participated in Hand Raisers for 100 for the United Way Day of Service and we are so happy that we had such great......
Arts and culture have been a significant part of our story here at Felege Hiywot Center since the beginning. We’ve found that incorporating the arts into our work has been a great benefit to the growth and development of our children, our community and......
Indianapolis Power and Light (IPL) does more than keep the lights on around Indianapolis. The power company is known for their nonprofit and community service initiatives. The Felege Hiywot Center along with Keep Indianapolis Beautiful (KIP) are excited about IPL’s Project GreenSpace program. About Project GreenSpace......
We are in the final week of our youth farm program here at Felege Hiywot Center, and our youth farmers have been working hard to keep the gardens tidy and productive. Each day has been filled with hard work, discussion and stimulating activities, and we’re looking forward to......
Here at Felege Hiywot Center our youth farm program is an integral expression of our mission. Our youth farm leaders are Indianapolis high-schoolers who have completed one or more years as a farm worker in our youth farm program. We are proud of these teens......
Read the latest news from 4H Tech Wizards.Techwizardnewsletterfeb2015...
Read about the 4H Tech Wizard program. Techwizardnewsletterdecembercom...
On December 13t4Hh, the Felege Hiywot Center hosted the 4H Tech Wizards and their families. It was great to have everyone at the center during the holiday season. The 4Hers made and decorated cookies. They also made Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies in a jar to......
This semester Professor Allison Fetter-Harrott, J.D., Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Political Science at Franklin College is teaching a class about Ethiopian culture and history. Students from Franklin College visited the center to hear about FHC Founder/Director Aster Bekele’s experience growing up in Ethiopia and coming......
4H Tech Wizards launch their rockets at FHC....
My favorite part of camp today was doing the longitude and latitude with the technology that the scientists brought for us to use. I learned that pollination is important because the plants need it to make food for us. It was really cool looking at......
IUPUI showed us about bees and other insects that pollinate by going flower to flower and we did some fun games about that. Bees are important to the ecosystem because they help the flowers and vegetables and fruits. My favorite part about camp so far......
We got to do the latitude and longitude today with IUPUI. We tracked it using the GPS units and the iPads. They showed us some stuff about bees like how they make honey and pollinate our stuff because they like the nectar. It was fun......
My favorite part of camp today was the pollination activity where we ran around like bumblebees. The bee keeper came today to teach us about bees. They pollinate our flowers and food which makes them very important. They are a big part of our ecosystem,......
My favorite part of camp this week was playing in the sand for the watershed lab that IUPUI did. The scientists from IUPUI also taught me that we have to take care of the soil for the future and that the five food groups we......
I had a lot of fun. One of my favorite parts of camp was playing dodge ball! Another one of the activities we did was imagining a robot we would invent. My robot would be a monkey that would make bananas for me. We also......
We did a lot of science stuff this week. Engineers came from Major Tool and we got to make Lego robots! It was hard for my kicker-bot to score a soccer goal though. They did an egg drop for us too. To keep my egg......
Today we learned a lot about water from IUPUI. They showed the water cycle to us, and I played a game where I was the condensation part of the cycle. It’s cool how we use the same water over and over and it is over......
Our summer Youth Farm/STEM gardening camp is going strong and just completed third week of camp. We thank our Board Members Chris Rothenberger, Director of Environmental Heath at Major Tool and Machine, Nicole Oglesby, Director, Diverse Community Partnership IUPUI Division of Continuing Studies and Dareskedar Henry CEO and......
Join with the Indianapolis Art Center: FHC is blessed to participate in a program offered by the Indianapolis Art Center on Saturdays starting June 11 through July 30 from noon to 4:00 pm. The class will focus on youth to express their Ethiopian heritage......
We’ve launched our first after-school program focusing on teaching the kids theater basics with professional actress Dija Henry, a recent graduate of Purdue University’s theater program. She helped to teach the kids’ theater basics such as stage direction, blocking, and character development. The kids had a......