My Nonprofit Reviews

As first a resident in the Transitional Housing Program, then as a participant in the Urban Ministry Program I spent almost 10 years volunteering in the offices at First Fruit Ministries, working to help the homeless people the Ministry serves.
I spent most of my time in the office working in the Transitional Housing Program and one of the brightest ways that First Fruit shines is that it welcomes people without judgement, with love for who and what they are, wherever that happens to be, at any given moment. Nor did any staff ever push their own beliefs on people although it is clearly a Christian-driven ministry. The example was always evident through love, acceptance, and welcome, and was for me, and others I watched over those years, the key to finding a path back to a belief system I had long ago abandoned but would have run from if it had been pushed on me.
Over those years I witnessed people who because of what was freely given, because of the emotional and practical support consistently offered, turn their lives completely around. It is the blessing of my life that even after 7 years away I am in touch with several former residents and get to continue to watch people coming from great trauma which resulted in addiction, mental and emotional illness change into a person who found their way to a healthy, joyful, and purposeful life. They, and those I run into occasionally on the bus, even after all these years, still credit those changes to the love, support and foundation received at First Fruit Ministry.
The tenets of treating everyone with respect, of making sure they walked with dignity as part of the Ministry family, stretched through all the programs at the Ministry whether it was an encounter of a few minutes in the line at the food pantry or giving fresh clean towels to someone who was taking their first shower after days of living in a tent. Those tenets are an offering to the homeless the Ministry serves that, as I was often told, was not usually part of their experience at other agencies. Making a difference in how someone felt about themselves was, in my opinion, the greatest gift offered to the people the Ministry served and was the most important thing that laid the foundation for a better life.
First Fruit Ministry programs are worthy of support, whether it’s financial or time, because they work, because they make a real difference for the better in people’s lives, because they reach the people who need the most help yet are the most neglected among us, because helping someone else is a gift to yourself.

I am a client and from personal experience this organization is absolutely wonderful. I was homeless and although I had worked my entire life was dealing with 'aging out' of employment. First Fruit has given me a place to stabilize, gain self esteem and purpose, and to reconnect with God. Very few staff and some 22K of volunteer hours go into running FFM's transitional housing, Food Pantry and outreach programs - so I know that the great majority of donations & grant money go directly to serving homeless and hungry folks. It's a beautiful thing to see!

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