Mission
Not All Charity Is Effective
- What if the charity you were involved in actually helped people get out of poverty?
- What if the people receiving the charity were given the opportunity to truly be active in that process?
- What if these people actually got to the point they didn’t need your help anymore?
New Covenant Life Support Center has adopted True Charity’s (truecharity.us) model of charity that is effective and transforming, championing a national movement of voluntarily funded, effective charity at the most local level.
Top Five Values
1. Imago Dei/Worth/Dignity
2. The Gospel of New Beginnings/Transformation
3. Work
4. Creativity
5. Shalom/Justice
We believe that most models of charity do more harm because they keep people enslaved to others for their basic needs. We will empower our Friends (clients) to discover their true worth as one created in the image of God and to be transformed by working of the Holy Spirit in their lives as they break the cycle of poverty. True life support!
The “Dignity Exchange,” allows our clients to exchange some sort of service/work for items from the Clothes Closet, the Cupboard Food Co-op, and other resources, and helps them to understand good stewardship of themselves. Dependency on others has been shown to keep people from thriving; our goal is to help people break those bonds of dependency and have the abundant life that Jesus promises.
We find great joy in witnessing people's transformations! We have been exploring ways to make our outreach more sustainable and impactful. Much of what is often referred to as charity can inadvertently do more harm than good, perpetuating dependency rather than fostering self-sufficiency. We are excited about a ministry model that is both sustainable and transformative, aimed at helping our friends develop essential life skills that will provide them with dignity, enable them to thrive, and ultimately achieve true self-sufficiency.
All this is a good picture of what our charity model at the Life Support Center looks like. We have been focusing on the first two road markers: Relief and Rehabilitation. Relief is primarily provided in the way of free lunches, and travel packs (to-go food items). Rehabilitation takes place through our Dignity Exchange, which initiates the journey of understanding that giving back and working are positive experiences. Now, we are ready to fully embrace the third stage, Development, through our initiative "Work Awakens Worth," which is our social enterprise program.