Highlands Community Ministries (HCM) is an ecumenical non-profit collective of 24 Louisville congregations working together to provide residents of the 16 Highlands neighborhoods with a better quality of life. Stan Esterle has been the creative force behind the HCM mission for the past 42 years. Hired as the organization’s first executive director in July 1970, Esterle is warm, knowledgeable, and quick to share a laugh. His enthusiasm for community building is incandescent. A graduate of the Raymond A. Kent School of Social Work at the University of Louisville, with concentrations in Community Organizing and Administration, Esterle is a fast-talker who is eager to describe the Ministries’ evolution and growth, its role in forming the city of Louisville as we know it today, and its programming, which is geared primarily for the benefit of the elderly, children, and families in need.
Neighborhood Organization
“I grew up in West Louisville, and my wife grew up in South Louisville,” says Esterle. “When we came to the Highlands we basically knew nothing about the neighborhood.”
“In July of 1970, the first thing that I did was spend several months getting to know the community. We called some neighborhood-based meetings, and we trained 120 volunteers to go into each neighborhood and ask the people there what they felt the needs were in their particular area. As a result, the one conviction that we arrived at was that we needed to organize each of the neighborhoods throughout the Highlands.”
Established in 1969, the Cherokee Triangle was the only neighborhood association in the Highlands. Esterle says that between 1973 and 1975, he and several students from the Kent School went into each of the other Highlands neighborhoods one-by-one, eventually forming 10 new neighborhood associations, like Deer Park, Tyler Park, and the Original Highlands by the mid-1970s.
“None of those [neighborhood associations] existed before we organized them. We would organize one, and then we would start from the boundaries of that one and organize another, and we worked ourselves all the way out to the Watterson Expressway.”
Thirty-five years later, these neighborhood associations remain intact; Esterle credits a network of carefully tended relationships based on an open dialog and mutual support.
Residents and Businesses
Working Together
The 1970s also saw the formation of the Highlands Commerce Guild, a project helped by Esterle’s community efforts. “The good news about the Bardstown Road Study that we did, is that prior to the study, the merchants and the neighborhoods did not really trust one another; however, when they got together to work on issues of zoning, especially, both sides began to realize that they had a lot in common [laughs] and it helped develop a positive relationship that still exists between the neighborhood associations and the commerce guild.”
“I really feel that one of the major reasons that the Highlands is in good shape today, or in better shape than when we came, is because of the neighborhood associations and the commerce guild and the fact that we got the residents caring about their neighborhoods.”
Programming and Services
Esterle says that HCM is unlike other Community Ministries that focus mostly on the needs of the poor because HCM is “more cradle to grave in [its] approach to Community Ministries.”
“About ten percent of the Highlands people are poor, and the others represent a wide variety of folks. Child care, for example, is one of the services we provide. We have three day care centers where 250 kids a day, children who are infants up to five years of age, can come and play and be looked after in a safe environment.”
“We also have a lot of services for the elderly: the Highlands, at one point, had the second largest population of the elderly in the city and they still represent a large percentage of our residents. We deliver meals to the elderly, we have a Visiting Nurses Clinic, we have outreach programs with social workers who go visit with the elderly, and we have an Adult Day Health Center as an alternative for those who cannot afford home health care.”
In addition to working with those in need and the elderly, HCM offers community classes, the Highland Youth Recreation Sports Program, sponsors trips, and organizes religious unity activities.
“Highlands Christian Ministries is a grouping of 24 Christian congregations, but we’ve always worked closely with the interfaith community as well. At one point, we had dialogues with the Jewish community every year, because so many Jewish people live in the Highlands. But then after 9/11 came, we felt that it was important to organize an Interfaith Dinner Dialog to not just involve Jews and Christians, but also Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and the Baha’i. We have six different main faiths and about 150-200 people who participate in that dialog every year. HCM focuses on both community development also interfaith and ecumenical development.”
Is Louisville Unique?
“Louisville is unique in that we’re the only city in the United States where every single neighborhood has a Community Ministries. It’s churches or congregations working together to improve the quality of life within a defined geographical area, in which those congregations exist.”
Esterle describes the cities of Detroit and Houston as having organizations of rough similarity, but he says, “no other city has anything like Louisville’s Community Ministries neighborhood-based formation where services have been established throughout the entire county.”
“We [as members of Louisville’s Association of Community Ministries] can say we serve every single street, so that if you’re poor and you don’t have food, or don’t have the ability to rent, you just call any ministries in town and ask which group can help; and we don’t duplicate services, so if you live in the Highlands you can come to HCM, if you live on Preston Street you would contact MUSCL (Ministries United South Central Louisville), so we all know one another’s boundaries and work together along those lines.”
On the Highlands
“The Highlands is such a supportive area. You know, as I’m getting ready to retire, people have been thanking me. But it seems to me that they should also be thanking themselves as well, for all the work that we’ve done together, because my theory is that no one person can do this kind of work all by themselves. Like they say, ‘It takes a village…’ We really are a village here in the Highlands; it’s a community where people are very supportive of one another.”
–Erynn Mcinnis
Stan Esterle retired from 42 years of service with HCM in December 2011. HCM is a member of the Association of Community Ministries (www.louisvilleministries.org). There are 15 Louisville Community Ministries serving residents from every zip code in Jefferson County. HCM publishes The Highlands Bulletin in late July each year. The bulletin is mailed to 17,000 households in the Highlands and provides residents with information on its services, upcoming classes, and activities. More information and an online version of the bulletin can be found at HCM’s website:
www.hcmlou.org.
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