The rescue, homeless and food set: a mission of 1954, a center of 1988, a food bank of 1993

1954–2025 · THE BODIES' OWN HISTORIES AND THE FEDERAL FILINGS

Three foundings, three decades apart, make the county's shelter-and-food net. The rescue mission came first: Hope Ministries of South Bend — incorporated as Rescue Incorporated, and long known as the Hope Rescue Mission, under that name already sheltering the homeless by 1959 — was established in 1954; it stands today at 432 South Lafayette Boulevard, its men's emergency shelter and residential programs there and its Family Life Center at 532 South Michigan Street housing single women and families, with a soup kitchen serving lunch and dinner 365 days a year. The center came in 1988: the Center for the Homeless, at 813 South Michigan Street, opened in December 1988 — born of a church-basement shelter, carried into being with the University of Notre Dame, which bought its building and leased it for $1 a year; a downtown hotel fire that same December forced it into round-the-clock service in its first month. Its filings count more than 700,000 safe nights and 1.5 million meals given to more than 45,000 men, women and children since that opening, and its campus added the Robert L. Miller Sr. Veteran's Center in 2011. The food bank came in 1993: in May of that year the United Religious Community's Hunger Education Task Force took up re-establishing food banking in north central Indiana; a first board sat in July; and in December 1993 the North Central Indiana Food Bank made its first distribution — 6,800 pounds of food to 29 agencies — as a subsidiary distribution organization of Gleaners Food Bank of Indianapolis. Certified in February 1996, it bought its 82,000-square-foot Chapin Street plant in July 2000, took its present name, Food Bank of Northern Indiana, in 2006, and now serves six counties — Elkhart, LaPorte, Kosciusko, Marshall, Starke and St. Joseph — reporting more than eleven million pounds distributed in 2025 through a network of partner agencies. Every one of the three is a South Bend seat serving this township at county strength; no mission, shelter or pantry of the set stands in New Carlisle in the record reached, and the food-rescue successor class the checklist carries — the food bank's own successor form — does not arise: the 1993 body is itself the present holder.

Sources:

1. Hope Ministries (hopesb.org and the federal listings: Rescue Incorporated, EIN 35-1038532) — established 1954; the Lafayette Boulevard and Michigan Street seats; Kern Road Mennonite Church history (GAMEO) for the Hope Rescue Mission name in use by 1959–60.
2. Center for the Homeless (cfh.net; Charity Navigator, IRS Form 990 data) — opening December 1988; 700,000+ nights, 1.5 million+ meals, 45,000+ people; Notre Dame Magazine, "A Home for Those Without One" — the $1-a-year lease and the December 1988 fire; the Miller Veteran's Center, 2011.
3. Food Bank of Northern Indiana, "About the Food Bank" and its 2013 annual report (feedindiana.org) — the 1993 founding course whole; the 2025 distribution figure as the body states it.