One of the wonderful things about this neighborhood is that although there are no access points to city/state resources within the Old Southside, & only one church doing outreach (out of 6, including one of the oldest Catholic churches in Indy), there are still people helping each other everywhere.

The store was fantastic this weekend! We don't track who comes, but there were many new faces along with the folks we see every time. That tells us that we are meeting a definite need, and gives us an opportunity to meet and chat with more neighbors and learn how we can better serve the community.

This. Just looking at @freestoreindy.bsky.social numbers against the cost of one ALS 911 call in Indianapolis you all have saved tens of thousands in your community. More importantly you all have directly lifted up folks & saved lives. You all are heroes. Mutual aid & direct action work, period.

What does “we take care of us” mean? It means our experience has shown that help via official channels for folks who are food/housing insecure is hard to access. That can be because of means testing, laws tied to past drug charges, negative experiences with govt., or a lack of nearby access points.

Why the Old Southside? Well, mostly because we live here and have built truly beautiful relationships with our neighbors. Simply put: we have skin in the game here. We want to see our community and the people we love have access to resources.

Hey there! We are the folks who run the Old Southside Free Store. This project started in summer of 2025, when two things occurred: some of our housing insecure neighbors began to stop by and ask for supplies (water bottles, food, sunscreen, etc.), and opiate OD's increased dramatically.