Writer / Janet Striebel
Photographer / Brian Brosmer
Cindy Holladay, mother of three, found a church home at New Hope Presbyterian, where she serves on a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) committee.
Anyone who knows Cindy can’t help but see a positive spark plug who ignites the energy within others around her to make something encouraging happen. For instance, after seeing the need for water in Flint, Michigan in 2016, she started a water drive. As a result, in less than two weeks, her MOPS group raised 77 cases, 32 gallons and nine liters of water.
Around this same time, one of Cindy’s good friends, Amie, was diagnosed with breast cancer and needed to have a series of radiation treatments.
“She has three daughters who are all around the same age as mine,” Cindy says. “Two of them were in school, but she needed someone to watch her 3-year old on some of the days when she had treatments. So, I watched her daughter for a couple hours one day a week when she had treatment, and my daughter loved it. It was truly a blessing for us.”
Another MOPS service project headed up by Cindy included a donation of diapers, wipes and feminine products to a food pantry. Her MOPS group spent service funds and donated more than 80 items to the Fishers United Methodist Church food pantry. She even organized a tour of the pantry for moms and their kids.
“I want my kids to see that life is bigger than what we’re doing in just our family,” Cindy says. “I want to give my kids awareness that there’s not always food on everyone’s table and not everyone is healthy.”
After her service project initiatives, Cindy was asked to become a co-coordinator for MOPS. She and her steering committee organize the meetings held twice monthly by arranging for guest speakers, planning craft projects, taking care of correspondence, marketing and much more.
In the fall of 2016, she organized a service project of collecting 30 pounds of pop tabs for the Ronald McDonald House, and she also collected cards for a young girl in Noblesville who had cancer.
Then, she was asked by her friend, Amie, if she’d like to serve on the New Hope Day of Caring Committee. She and her husband and friends helped build a shed for a woman in New Palestine who lost her husband and needed storage space.
She also organized a toy drive and DOC for Nathan’s Playroom, a non-profit in Indy that gives toys to seriously ill children and their siblings.
She’s managed a DOC for the Brooks Blackmore Family from Carmel, too. Brooks had cancer and unfortunately passed last May at age 6.
Cindy has also walked in the Race for the Cure, become a Dance Mom and Brownie Girl Scout Leader and volunteers as a wish granter for Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Cindy and her husband, Aaron, have three daughters: Sophie (8), Evie (5) and Lily (3). In addition, Cindy likes to volunteer in her children’s classrooms, have lunch with them at school, plan their birthday parties, take them on MOPS playdates and, of course, tuck them in at night.
“I wouldn’t be able to do any of these things if it weren’t for my husband, who is so understanding,” Cindy says. “He sacrifices a lot and supports and assists me in volunteering.
“What I’ve found on my journey this past year is that kindness breeds kindness,” she adds. “What amazes me the most is how people want to help and will bend over backwards. Whenever I organized a drive, everyone was so generous and wanted to give genuinely.”
