The Circle City is drawing national attention in many areas – now more than ever. From the local foodie scene to the arts, we are a community of proud residents committed to making Indy great. Launched in 2016, Indianapolis presents No Mean City, a website that offers real stories of what it means to call Indy home, and a citizens’ guide to community, culture, schools, housing, and more.

1. The Easiest Place to Buy a Home by Realtor.com
2. Ranked No. 1 rated Airport in North America by Airports Council International
3. Named Best in the U.S. 2015 by Lonely Planet.
4. Ranked No. 9 for the 2015 Most Affordable Cities by Forbes
5. Ranked No. 9 for Best Places for Businesses and Careers by Forbes
6. Named the 9th best city to find a job by CareerBliss
7. The Indianapolis 500 – which celebrated its 100^th running in May 2016
8. The shrimp cocktail at St. Elmo Steak House, recognized as an ‘American Classic’ by the James Beard Foundation
9. The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, the largest children’s museum in the world. Plus other top family attractions
10. Shapiro’s Delicatessen, which USA Today called one of America’s greatest delis
11. A bustling local restaurant scene. Use this guide
12. Several growing suburbs with award-winning school districts, arts and cultural attractions and unique neighborhoods

Our neighborhoods are something to brag about!

1. Meridian Hills
2. Meridian Kessler
3. Butler Tarkington
4. Broad Ripple
5. Downtown and surrounding neighborhoods

Don’t forget our widely acclaimed suburbs!

1. Carmel
2. Westfield
3. Zionsville

www.bebigforkids.org

Changing perspectives. Changing lives. For more than 100 years, Big Brothers Big Sisters has operated under the belief that inherent in every child is the ability to succeed and thrive in life. As the nation’s largest donor and volunteer supported mentoring network, Big Brothers Big Sisters makes meaningful, monitored matches between adult volunteers (“Bigs”) and children (“Littles”), ages 8 through 18, in communities across the country. We develop positive relationships that have a direct and lasting effect on the lives of young people.

 https://www.cicf.org

Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF) is a public charitable foundation. We do three things:

1. We award grants to not-for-profits doing good work in our community.
2. We help donors change the world through highly effective charitable giving.
3. We provide leadership, finding new ways to make Central Indiana a better place.

 https://www.hollidaypark.org

Friends of Holliday Park (FHP) is an independent 501(c)(3) public charity committed to preserving Holliday Park. FHP works closely with Indy Parks to improve and maintain many aspects of the park including the playground, rock garden, trails, Nature Center, Ruins, roads and parking lots. Trail renovation, support of field trip transportation costs for area schools, and sponsorship of the Fall Festival and of the free summer concert series, are just some of projects that Friends of Holliday Park funds to ensure Holliday Park remains a well-used and well-loved park.

 http://www.kibi.org

Since 1976, KIB has helped its neighbors plant more than 40,000 trees and has been supported by more than one thousand individual donors towards those efforts. We accomplish these lofty goals by engaging diverse communities through our hands-on programs and initiatives to create vibrant public places, helping people and nature thrive.

 www.themindtrust.org

Creating Great Public Schools For Every Student. Great schools are transformative. They improve the lives of the students they serve and create new possibilities for the communities where they’re located.

At The Mind Trust, we aim to help create enough great schools so that every student in Indianapolis has the opportunity to attend one. We are doing this by launching more high quality schools with the conditions for success and creating the right landscape for supporting these schools – for example, by growing top-notch education organizations that address schools’ critical needs.

 http://www.nationalmssociety.org

The National MS Society is a collective of passionate individuals who want to do something about MS now—to move together toward a world free of multiple sclerosis. MS stops people from moving. We exist to make sure it doesn’t. We help each person address the challenges of living with MS through our 50-state network of chapters. The Society helps people affected by MS by funding cutting-edge research, driving change through advocacy, facilitating professional education, and providing programs and services that help people with MS and their families move their lives forward.

Now in its second year, Panther Kids Care is a volunteer-led, open to all, family volunteer club working to meet the needs of our community. Our goals are simple: to serve our community, expose our kids to the many needs in our city and to provide them with opportunities to learn and serve beside their peers. Participating families take turns organizing monthly hands-on service activities, and the power of our kids never ceases to amaze us.

 http://www.shepherdcommunity.org

Shepherd Community Center works with neighborhood youth and their families “to break the cycle of poverty on the near Eastside of Indianapolis by engaging and empowering the community to cultivate healthy children, strong families, and vibrant neighborhoods through a Christ-centered approach that meets the spiritual, physical, emotional, and academic needs of our neighbors.”

 http://www.stlukesumc.com

St. Luke’s is an open community of Christians, gathering to seek, celebrate, live and share the love of God for all creation. We envision being transformed by God and transforming the world into a compassionate, just, inclusive, Christ-like community.