Serving the Community at Christmastime (Part 2)
Yesterday’s post provided two questions to help us think through helpful service during Christmastime and described three ways Restoration is corporately serving this season.
Our guiding questions to sustainable and effective service and giving are:
- Does this opportunity respect the dignity of the poor by empowering them to be a part of their own development?
- Does it address not just material poverty, but also social, spiritual, and/or psychological poverty?
These questions are a good start in helping us think through how to serve the less fortunate this Christmas season. With one-off service events, often the best way to get involved is to donate to or partner with organizations that are already doing good, sustainable work in your community.
Let’s look at a what a few local organizations do and how you can serve them during Christmastime.
What they do: Little Lights, similar to the Porch is an excellent Christian nonprofit that serves underprivileged youth and families in DC. Through after-school and summer programs, mentoring, and arts-based programs, Little Lights empowers the children they are serving and works to meet not just their material need but also help them understand what it looks like to walk with Jesus. Further, Little Lights has programs for families, such as on-the-job training, and economic empowerment resources.
What you can do: One of the ways they get the community involved during the Christmas season is by asking for donations to their Christmas Store. You can donate using this Amazon wish list. Each family who is connected with Little Lights can “shop” at the Christmas Store. The Store gives the opportunity for parents to pick out gifts for their children and allows for children to receive gifts from their parents (rather than strangers) who otherwise may not be able to afford gifts. And, it gives the Little Lights staff an opportunity to get to know the parents of the kids who are in their programs.
What they do: Mission Muffins is a ministry of the Central Union Mission. Men from the shelter are hired as bakers and are taught hard skills (baking, marketing, sales) as well as soft skills to prepare them to enter the workforce. Mission Muffins cultivates the gifts of homeless men to enable them to pull themselves out of poverty through access to a steady income. The men also spend time in Bible studies through the Mission.
What you can do: Consider buying some muffins, coffee, scones, or handheld pies for your next party or get-together. Or, buy some Mission Mud (their coffee brand) as a Christmas gift. By purchasing these goods, you are supporting an effective homeless ministry.
What they do: Compassion “is a child-advocacy ministry…that releases children from spiritual, economic, social, and physical poverty. The goal is for each child to become a responsible and fulfilled adult.” They have a variety of programs to help empower these children and their communities from after school programs to aid during crises.
What you can do: They have a gift catalog that allows you to choose the way your donations are used. Keep in mind aid and handouts are essential for emergencies, but hurtful for development. Aid in place of development can cause reliance, dependence, and take away from their own self-initiative. In Toxic Charity, Robert D. Lupton writes, “When we do for those in need what they have the capacity to do for themselves, we disempower them…Giving to those in need what they could be gaining from their own initiative may well be the kindest way to destroy people.”
With this in mind, donate aid to the emergency needs, but not for development. For example, for non-crisis situations, donate to academic scholarships or baking classes rather than a playground. Donate to hygiene training rather than a water well. It is not to say that playgrounds or water wells are not good investments. However, without knowing exactly how they go about giving aid in non-crisis situations, it is possible that donations could cause more harm than good in the long-run.
What they do: Serving meals, while important in crisis situations, isn’t always the most helpful way to serve the poor in the long-run. However, DC Central Kitchen has a far broader impact on the community. From culinary job training to providing access to healthy options in DC’s food desserts, DC Central Kitchen “fights hunger differently.”
What you can do: They are always looking for volunteers to help chop, slice, and peel. Volunteers help turn wasted food into healthy options for those who don’t typically have access to them.
Tomorrow’s blog will provide a list of ten other excellent local nonprofits that don’t have specific Christmas opportunities, but would certainly benefit from a Christmas donation. Or, consider committing to consistent volunteering with one of the orgs on the list (or one of the ones above!) as a Christmas gift.