Over 24 thousand residents of Gary, Indiana, are still without power after storms devastated the area over two weeks ago. A plethora of local organizations have been doing their best to help the community, distributing food, water, and whatever other resources they can, but the area is still suffering.
If you would like to help them, the link to do so is here.
Gary, Indiana, used to be a center of the automobile industry before outsourcing removed factory jobs in the same way it did for Detroit, Michigan. While Detroit remains a major metropolitan area, Gary never recovered. Its residents today are largely low-income families with generations spent in the surrounding area. The city itself is a shell of what it once was.
Joining the relief efforts are Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton and food and restaurant influencer Keith Lee. The pair announced on Monday August 24th that they are partnering to donate nearly 30 thousand dollars.
The drive was initially Lee's invention, starting the funding off with 15 thousand of his own before Haliburton reached out to match his donation with another 15K of his own.
Ever since the gutting of FEMA funds, the United States government has stopped investing in prevention and support for environmental disasters, big or small, and their victims. Gary is just another example of how communities need to step up when larger interests fail to support their own in a time of need.
Indiana as a whole is a community that Haliburton has invested in heavily since he was traded from the Sacramento Kings in February of 2022. He recently hosted a celebrity baseball game for charity, flanked by Indianapolis Colts QB Daniel Jones and has been hugely involved with the fanbase and its needs.
As the Pacers point guard returns from a devastating injury he suffered during Game 7 of the 2024-25 Finals, it's nice to see that even in his darkest hour, he will never stop caring for the area he represents.
The fanbase will surely do the same for him.
Indiana is a basketball state
Despite not being a major market or having a particularly rabid reputation, the Pacers have among the most involved fan bases in the league. Even during a 19-win gap year that felt like walking through mud in steel-toed boots, they showed up night in and night out in the regular season.
Expectations remain high for this Pacers squad despite a rough season that saw them tumble from a Finals berth to a top-five pick immediately, and so much of that comes down to Tyrese Haliburton.
The point guard's return from injury may just be the deciding factor not just for this season but for this entire era of Indiana basketball. If he returns to form, the Pacers can continue to claim to be contenders, fringe or otherwise. If he does not, it may be time to break up the team without ever seeing their true peak.
Basketball breaks your heart like that. Some days it's hard to be a fan, just because there's no way of knowing what your team could have done until it's painfully and obviously over.
Indiana will care anyway, though. They'll care for Haliburton as a person as much as they care for him as a player. They will represent him in their love for the sport. They will support his aspirations for success and pick him up when he is at his lowest.
After all, he's shown he would do the same for them.
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