Need Help? If you are in need of emergency shelter, please call 765-456-3838 for availability.
Resident Stories
Read the stories of some of the people you help us serve.
“Literally Changed My Life”
You helped Les escape addiction, find his faith and hope for the future.
Les has struggled with drug addiction most of his life … and it nearly cost him everything.
In fact, Les was so caught up in his destructive habits at one point that he’d moved out of state and away from family. Cut all ties. He wasn’t even talking to his kids. It was a real low point.
After getting arrested and charged with dealing meth, Les enrolled in a drug court program. “Part of the program was you moved into the Kokomo Rescue Mission,” he says. “That’s how I ended up here.”
It was a big adjustment. “When I got here, I was really depressed, feeling very alone,” he says. “The loneliness of not having my kids kicked in and it was like, ‘All right, I’m going to change.’”
With the help of compassionate friends like you, Les was true to his word! “It literally changed my life,” he says. “I’ve restored relationships with my family and my kids. I’ve found Jesus.” Les now runs Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings and is even employed by the Mission as a cook!
“It’s a really good feeling to be accepted,” he says, “To really feel as though the help you’re receiving comes from a personal, genuine place. They’ve been really good to me. All of the staff accepted me like family.”
Looking back, Les is amazed by the transformation in his life that your kindness made possible.
“I’m definitely not going backward,” he says. “Now, it makes me happy to give to people instead of trying to take from people.” Les also hopes you know just how much your support means. “Your donation will help,” he affirms.
Thank you for helping your neighbors find their way!
“You Don’t Know Who You Impact”
You helped Brandi find a fresh start when she was struggling.
“I love taking care of people,” Brandi says. Sadly, people have also been a source of pain for her.
First, Brandi’s marriage of 12 years collapsed because her husband was unfaithful. After the divorce, she moved to Indiana to be closer to her mother and sister, and began working as an assistant in a nursing home.
But once the pandemic hit, everything changed. “Watching people die within days, it just broke my heart,” Brandi says. “I don’t think I got over that.” To make matters worse, Brandi endured the death of her ex-boyfriend — whom she was still close to — when he succumbed to his struggles with alcohol.
“I got to a point of very severe depression, anxiety, and I couldn’t handle regular life anymore,” Brandi says candidly. “It got so overwhelming that I wanted to commit suicide. I finally sought help, and that’s how I ended up at Open Arms.”
Open Arms is the Kokomo Rescue Mission’s shelter for single women and women with children — made possible by friends like you! It’s a haven for people like Brandi, who are desperate to find stable ground again.
“The big thing for me when I first came in was relief,” she says. “I had a roof over my head, and a whole bunch of stress was relieved. I felt like it was coming home where I belonged.”
What does Brandi have to say to donors like you?
“You may think it’s not significant, but you don’t know who you impact. That one donation could change somebody’s life.”
On a personal note, Brandi concludes: “Everybody has a hero, and my mom is mine. I wouldn’t have come as far as I have without her.”
Thank you for helping to lead your struggling neighbors in the right direction!
“I Didn’t Know What to Expect”
Marjorie knows it could happen to anyone. She’s grateful for your help.
Not many people know what it’s like to lose their job and their home on the same day. Marjorie does.
“I was property manager for a storage facility,” she says. Why was Marjorie let go? “No valid driver’s license. I’d been in that position for about a year. That’s how I ended up losing my apartment — because it was attached to the facility.”
Suddenly homeless with nowhere to go, Marjorie was so grateful to find the open doors of Watered Garden, the Kokomo Rescue Mission’s shelter for single women. “Everybody was welcoming,” she says. “Especially the first night, because you are nervous. I didn’t know what to expect.”
The encouragement and community Marjorie discovered here has been life-changing. She’s grown by such leaps and bounds that she was recently moved up to resident leader! “Ever since she’s come, she’s been extremely helpful and proactive,” her case manager says.
Marjorie hopes friends like you understand just what your support of the Mission means. “It’s people helping people through Christ,” she says. “The staff and everybody here, they encourage you to make the changes you want to make. They don’t push. They nudge, but they’re very patient.”
Watered Garden has helped Marjorie rediscover her own faith, too, which has become “a much more concentrated part of my life. I guess God never really left me.”
As for the future? “My goal is to go into the Peace Corps,” Marjorie says. “As long as I keep learning, I’m going to enjoy where I am on the way to where I’m going.”
Thank you for helping your neighbors find their way!
“Everything That I Could Ask For”
Angela never saw her crisis coming. She’s grateful for your help.
Angela is a survivor.
But sadly, like many women who find refuge at the Kokomo Rescue Mission, her story begins with an escape. “I came to Open Arms due to losing my home to an abusive ex-boyfriend,” she says. “It was a very terrible experience.”
Even more heartbreaking, Angela wasn’t alone. Her two little kids also needed a safe place to sleep. So, when the Department of Child Services told Angela about Open Arms — our women’s shelter for mothers — she made the move.
At first, it was hard on the kids. “They were scared, crying, telling me that they didn’t want to be here,” Angela recalls. But now? “They feel like they’re home.”
Angela has found the support and resources she needed, too: “I really enjoy the staff here. They’ve encouraged me to move forward. They’re helpful in all types of ways. Just everything that I could ask for.”
Most important was the moment Angela learned where to put her trust. “I went to church, and I got right with God,” she remembers. “Me and my kids, we pray every night before bed. I could see a big change in them.”
Angela says her whole perspective has changed through this experience. “Almost losing my kids opened up my eyes and made me realize you got to just keep pushing and leave all that behind you. The abuse, it’s done. The homelessness, it’s done. And me and my kids can just be here.”
Angela also hopes her story inspires and helps others. “I just want people to know that they’re not alone and to be kind,” she says.
What’s next for Angela? “My happy ending is mainly to see my kids go through high school, go through college, something that I never got to do,” she says. “I want to lead them in the right direction and make sure they don’t end up where I’ve been.”
Thank you for helping to lead your struggling neighbors in the right direction!
"I Feel OK Again"
How your support helped Deanna find new life.
Deanna knows she’s a changed woman after a year at the Kokomo Rescue Mission. She’s at peace. She’s confident. She’s happy.
But Deanna has another objective measure of how much she’s changed. And it has something to do with her language skills.
“I cussed like a sailor when I first got here,” she says, laughing. But not anymore.
Deanna, 56, says that’s partly because of following the rules, but it’s mostly due to what she calls “a deep change inside.” And she says that’s because she feels deeply loved at Open Arms.
“Having people around me going through what I’ve gone through is a blessing,” she says. “Being here has made me feel OK again.”
Deanna hadn’t been okay for a while, due to a meth addiction that started in her mid-40s — partly because she liked the buzz, and partly because it relieved chronic back pain. But the drugs ended up costing her her job, her home and most of her belongings.
She found a safe, healing place to land at Open Arms, and has had no desire to do drugs since. But she’d only been here a couple of months when she was diagnosed with cancer and went into a round of chemo and radiation.
Whatever comes next, Deanna is facing it with courage. Her housemates bought her a T-shirt that says, “This is not the journey I would’ve chosen for myself, but I love life and I choose to fight.”
“It made me feel wanted,” Deanna says. “And needed.”