Love Inc - Staunton-Waynesboro-Augusta

Programs: Neighbors in need: our organization partners with local churches by filling gaps in community services. In 2017, we perfomred intakes for 235 families, utilizing 6,015 documented phone calls (incoming and outgoing) and making approximately 300 trips to pick up / deliver donated goods such as furniture, clothing, household supplies, paper goods, personal hygiene items, etc. After assessing and qualifying needs, we may also refer participants to other agencies for services.

loving your neighbor: in the fall of 2013, the organization held it's first classes in personal financial management for recipients of services. The goal is to help them learn to manage their resources more effectively and to eventually help them overcome the circumstances that led them to seek assistance. The instruction is bible-based, and the classes enabled participants to establish ongoing relationships with staff, volunteers, and churches. This activity has been highly successful, growing from 6 participants in 2013 to a total of 22 in 2014. During 2015 the program grew dramatically, serving a total of 55 participants in the 3 sessions offered throughout the year. The data for 2016 was very similar to 2015, serving 40 participants in each of 3 twelve-week sessions. Participants earn vouchers that are redeemable for goods and services for participating and for completing homework assignments. During 2017 the participants earned 1,602 such vouchers with a total value of 19,483. 2017 course offerings included a basic new image class, financial management, alpha, parenting, and health & wellness. We will continue to expand this program in 2018 and beyond. The demand has been astounding. In conjunction with the classes, volunteers from 25 different churches provided dinner each night (36 nights at two locataions) to all participants, their children, all staff, volunteers, and guests. During 2017 we added a satelite class location for our loving your neighbor program. This additional location is dedicated to offering and teaching our new image classes, the beginning point in the class offerings to our neighbors. This location provides the same programming benefits that our original location has offered, such as the meals, childrens' education, and the voucher program (as described in the paragraph above).

treasures for love: in mid-july of 2013 the organization opened a retail location to sell certain donated goods to the community. The primary purpose of the operation is to generate revenue to support the program services as identified in this return. The store was operated 6 days per week in 2017 with 4,452 hours of volunteer labor, in addition to a small amount of oversight by the executive director. Sales have have continued to grow, providing a total of 24,000 toward funding the 2017 exempt purposes and administrative costs of the ministry. Beginning in january 2018 it is providing 3,000 per month for overall ministry purposes.

creating gifts of love -- in november of 2016 we held our 4th annual program for children in lower income households throughout our service area. Children are invited from the local schools having the very highest percentage of children elibible for free lunches under the federal school nutrition program, as well as children from families who have already met our criteria for receiving assistance. This program is designed not to provide gifts to the children, but to assist the children in making gifts to give to others (parents, siblings, etc. ) at christmas. We believe that teaching children to give of themselves is a gift they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. This year, 96 children participated along with their parents, grandparents, and others. Twelve churches assisted by setting up craft stations and helping the children make various gifts for others. In addition, a small christian group provided breakfast and lunch items to the children, their families, and the volunteers. Training --in order to assure that staff and volunteers are equipped to provide all services with excellence, a training program was initiated during 2015 and continued in 2016. In 2016 we offered two training sessions, renewing the mind, to a total of 26 persons trained, providing 25 hours of training to each participant. This particular course was designed to help participants discover opportunities within themselves to change how they perceive their role in working with our neighbors in need, and to learn how to make those changes. The goal for the ministry was to improve the overall effectiveness of our work with neighbors, and to provide a baseline for how we as a ministry go about providing goods and services to those we serve. We continued to offer the redemptive compassion course that was begun in 2016. In 2017 we offered 7 opportunities for this eight-week class that was attended by 81 participants from 29 different churches. Participants included lay members of churches, church leaders, and ordained pastors. This particular training is designed to help participants discover how they individually view charity, and teach them to look at it holisticly, helping them to develop that kind of approach to helping those in need. This training has led to greater volunteerism throughout the ministry, but especially within our loving your neighbor program. Within our training program, we engaged in two new activities in 2017. First, we hosted a national training event for volunteers in our organization as well as volunteers from seven other love inc affiliates. This two-day event included over 50 participants who received training under 4 national board members and trainers from the national organization. In addition, three of our staff members went to nampa, id to receive four days of vision and reality training. The focus of this training was to equip our staff members to plan for establishing deeper church relations and in using the redemptive compassion book and materials in volunteer training and in growing our transformational ministry. (this item is also addressed as part of comments about our loving your neighbor program elsewhere in this document. ) church relations & development -- our primary ministry focus is to mobilize churches to change lives and communities. To be certain we are fulfilling and expanding that focus we must periodically meet with area pastors and churches for feedback from partnering churches and to establish relationships with non-partnering churches, encouraging them to become partnering churches. During 2017 we made 38 presentations of the ministries of love inc to church congregations and 4 presentations to other community organizations. Though we did not gain any new church partners during 2017, as a result of these presentations we have prospects for five new church partners during 2018. As part of our church relations & development program in 2017 we held a day of gratitude breakfast and fellowship event for local pastors and volunteers. The three-hour event was attended by 9 pastors and 41 volunteers. Community missions -- this activity is a natural extension of our work to mobilize churches, to provide opportunities for church members to become actively involved in local missions work. The director of transformational ministries intentionally works with churches, both partnering and non- partnering, to set up such mission opportunities, generally based on needs within the ministry and on the types of volunteers coming from each specific church, such as age, physical abilities, experience, etc. Because of these volunteer teams, love inc is able to expand activities, better organize our warehouse, and other similar service improvements. During 2017 we were blessed with 7 such teams, averaging approximately 3 hours per team/person. Approximately 105 students and 25 adults participated in volunteer activities such as painting, building shelves, sorting clothes, delivering products to neighbors in need, cleaning large and small kitchen appliances, vacuuming sofas and chairs, cleaning wooden furniture, organizing donated products, cleaning vehicles that are to be donated to neighbors in need, and putting together products to be given to neighbors on a voucher basis. This aspect of our community missions activity also provided staff with opportunities to model christian living while working with the participants.