Leslie Alig Collins

The Neighborhood: Tiptoeing into Poverty and Finding Hope Leslie Alig Collins

Publisher Marketing: Jim and Debbie Strietelmeier, a middle-class Christian couple, move with their three young children into the grittiest, most crime-riddled neighborhood in Indianapolis. They call this suffering on purpose. The goal is to bring hope and a haven to people in a place where nice folks don't go. Then, a curious thing happens: "Nice" folks start going there. The wealthy suburbanites dine side by side with people who don't even own a coat. They stumble in their efforts to connect, but people from both cultures get back up and try again. Leslie Collins' eyewitness account brings to life the people of Indianapolis' inner city, and with painful honesty chronicles their strengths, weaknesses and astonishing will to succeed. The story centers around Neighborhood Academy, a two-room school with a student population of broken children. First- through 12th-graders bring to the school their foibles, their infirmities, their hopelessly fetid home lives. There, they find a goldmine of love, acceptance and hope. All of this whild studying upstairs in a building where street prostitutes and their johns steal inside to do business in a cloak room. The story replays of the author's experiences after more than four years of interacting with the people in the neighborhood of Tenth and Rural streets. It is generouslly highlighted with the poignant and humorous anecdotes of Jim Strietelmeier, a gifted storyteller and devoted champion of the poor.