At the end of 2011, Deseret News named its best articles in six categories, one of which was care for the poor and needy.  This is a review of those best articles.

#10 — Turning Skills into Jobs

This article explains the charitable works of a non-profit organization called Global Artisans.  The organization helps skilled refugees open their own businesses using their unique skills.  The non-profit was founded by Ze Min Xiao, refugee services liaison for Salt Lake County in 2009.

In collaboration with the Utah Refugee Coalition and American Express, Xiao started Global Artisans to help refugees to put those skills to good use. On Thursdays and Saturdays, people from all over the world — Tibet, Iraq, Bhutan, Burma, Eretria — gather to knit, weave or sew together. To make their skills more applicable in an American market, Global Artisans offers business, finance and computer classes.  [Read more...]

#9 — Keeping Families Intact

This article profiles the House of Hope, a residential rehabilitation facility.  House of Hope is a government funded non-profit organization. Ten years ago the facility pioneered a family-centered approach to substance abuse treatment.   This is often the last hope for addicted mothers and their children, who begin by residing at the facility and then report on an out-patient basis.  Funding cuts have put the programs in danger.

The children manifest many problems due to the drug use of their parents.  Some are physically impaired because their mothers used drugs during their pregnancies.  Others are behaviorally impaired because their lives have been chaotic and insecure.  (Read more…)

#8 — Pennies for Change

The internet is transforming the way people make charitable donations.  While there are websites for large, well-known charities, the ease of building one’s own blog, website, or social media venue has enabled people to establish charities that work through very, very small donations.  As a result, nonprofits are beginning to rely less on the rich.

Using social media members of the Millennial generation who are movers but not spenders are able to mount their own charitable campaigns.  (Read more…)

#7 — It Takes a Village

Humanitarian projects that are mounted in third-world countries fare better when they have local leadership on site.  In the early 1980s, James B. Mayfield trekked from village to village in Indonesia, tracking down projects planned and paid for by the World Bank and USAID.   He found that over 80% of charitable projects had failed and fallen into disrepair and disuse.  The people were waiting for the Americans to come back and fix everything.  Mayfield decided to come up with a new idea —  he founded CHOICE Humanitarian, a Utah-based nonprofit that builds schools, water systems and micro-enterprise programs in Africa, Latin America and Asia, he would insist: “The local people will lead the way.”  (Read more…)

#6 — The Children Left Behind

More than 5,100 children are in the foster care system because their parents have been detained or deported.

Twenty-two percent of the 397,000 illegal immigrants deported in 2011 were parents to U.S.-citizen children, compared to just 8 percent from 1998 to 2007. If deportations continue on trend, the ARC estimates the country will add 15,000 immigrant children to the foster care roles over the next five years.

Immigration policies and laws are built around the assumption that families will, and should, be reunited, but this is very complicated.  (Read more…)

#5 — Hurting Charity

Obama and Congress are considering cutting back on tax deductions for charitable donations.  Many charities worry donors will give less and needy people will go without.   Because of the U.S. recession, donations are already down, and funding cuts have also hurt charities.

“People are struggling and donations are hard to come by,” said Steve Taylor, vice president of public policy at United Way Worldwide. “It’s the people at the bottom of the economic spectrum who were already hurt the most by the recession and, if these plans go through, they’ll be the ones to suffer again.” (Read more…)

#4 — A Judge Who Made a Difference

Judges who are compassionate enough to listen to the accused, have an effect on their future behavior.

A judge’s disposition — whether respectful and caring or mean and disinterested — may make the difference between a trip back to prison and an addiction-free life for a drug offender.

In a study of 101 drug courts across the country, NPC Research discovered courts where the judge spends an average of three minutes or more speaking with each offender were more than twice as successful at keeping participants from reoffending. The reduction in recidivism increased as one-on-one time with the judge increased.  (Read more…)

#3 — Seeds of Hope

Cindy Packard and her  husband founded the nonprofit Care for Life, which has brought her back to Mozambique many times.

In the villages where Care for Life works, the death rate has dropped from an average of 22 deaths every six months to five. The percentage of people with adequate housing is up from less than half to an average of 85. Thirty percent more children attend school. Employment statistics have more than doubled. Adult literacy rates have increased from 50 to 77 percent. More than that, though, Care for Life seems to have discovered a formula for inspiring hope among the destitute and giving them tools to help themselves.   (Read more…)

#2 — Water and Hope

This article profiles humanitarian aid work performed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often erroneously called the Mormon Church, in Seamay, Guatemala.  In rural areas of Guatemala, clean water was scarce and almost half of all students failed the first grade.

…the coffee industry, once the backbone of Guatemala’s economy, had essentially collapsed in the mid-1990s when, due to deregulation and free trade, factory farms in places like Brazil and Vietnam flooded the global market with cheap beans, resulting in the loss of half a million jobs in Guatemala. Seamay had been hit particularly hard.  (Read more…)

#1 — Stolen Innocence

The slave trade is alive and well in the United States of America, but some people are trying to stop it.

With job descriptions ranging in scope from prostitute to waiter to maid, more than 150,000 people in the United States are living in slavery, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Because of a deep-seated perception that slavery is a Third World issue, states have had a hard time getting the ball rolling on anti-trafficking initiatives.  (Read more…)

The Deseret News — Best Articles of 2011

Hundreds of volunteers from the six Mormon congregations in Winnipeg, Canada,  picked up canned food and non-perishable items from residents of a dozen Winnipeg neighbourhoods.  The food will go to Winnipeg Harvest to feed the hungry.

This July, 2010, food drive is the fifth one supported by the city’s Mormons. The goal is to add 13,500 kilograms to the food bank’s supplies.  The food bank distributes food to more than 5,000 families weekly.  Flyers were distributed to 60,000 households in preparation for the drive.  Residents left food on their doorsteps to be picked up by the volunteers.

Latter-day Saints are prepared to help without making an extra trip to the grocery store.  For many years they have been urged by church leaders to lay up a store of food, clothing and fuel.  The method is to gradually stock up on the food the family eats on a regular basis until there is a three-months supply, then rotate through the pantry, so the supply is refreshed.  Emergency water rations can be stored in cleansed plastic containers that used to carry other products, or in containers purchased specifically to store water.  After the three months’ supply is in place, then the Chuch instructs its members to store a year’s supply of items that have a very long shelf life, so they don’t have to be rotated.  These items include wheat, dry beans, rice, sugar, salt, and honey.

Latter-day Saints also prepare 72-hour kits for emergency evacuations.  For more on emergency preparedness and food storage, go to MormonPreparedness.com.

An ecumenical service project is under way in American Fork, Utah.  The project was undertaken by the Community Presbyterian Church for the benefit of children with autistic disorders.  The church had run a pre-school and day center for three decades, but closed the program when other pre-schools sprung up in the growing community.  However, in 2008, the church was approached by the North County Summer Autistic Program, which was looking for a new home.  The group is an 11-year-old cooperative of parents with children who have autism spectrum disorders. They operate a school and recreation program during the summer months.

The playground was deteriorating and had not been designed for children with autism spectrum disorders.  The Presbyterians began raising money for the project but also needed help with physical labor.  Dex Andrews, mission leader for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Highland First Ward, approached the Presbyterians to offer assistance.  Mormon volunteers brought shovels, a dump truck and an earth mover and trailers to help with the work, accomplishing in a day what would have taken a year without their help.  They removed bushes and dead trees,  trimmed trees, and removed asphalt and old fencing from the area. 

The project took place on June 5, 2010, with 20 adults and 17 older youth from the Highland ward joining about 20 Presbyterians to clean up the playground.

Europeans and Americans are used to seeing newspaper photographs of humanitarian aid workers in Africa.  The workers are invariably white, and from developed, “first world” countries, trying to lend a hand to poorer Africans.  The photographs are different, however in an article on Vanguardngr.com, a Nigerian paper reporting a major cleanup effort in Lagos, Nigeria.

Nigerian members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mobilized in Lagos to clean up Ikeja General Hospital, especially clearing drains that were breeding grounds for mosquitos.  Church members were clad in the recognizable yellow aprons bearing the logo “Mormon Helping Hands.”  The aprons are the same that were apparent at the hurrican Katrina service sites in the U.S.

Male members of the Church sand filled some failed sections of the hospital road while the females swept the hospital premises and also cleared the garbage at the back of Ayinke ward.  Mormon children also participated.  The exercise also took place in places like Ifako Health Centre, General Hospital, Ogba, Ikoyi Prison, Agege General Hospital, Ajuwon Community Health Center, Ikorodu General Hospital, Surulere Local Government Premises, Onilegogoro Bus-stop, among others.

The same sort of service was taking place all over Africa as part of the project sponsored by the Church.

“A Ghanaian, Richard K. Ahadjie, said of the exercise: ‘I came for a leadership training meeting yesterday and I was supposed to leave for Accra this morning. I know the project is for all Africans and if I decided to leave this morning, I shall miss this project back home in Accra. So I decided to stay in Nigeria for the three hours exercise.  This exercise has been able to portray Christ’s attitude on cleanliness.’”

“Chairman, National Public Affairs Council in Nigeria, Elder Alexander Odume told Vanguard Metro, ‘We feel great for doing such a thing. Mormons means good; we are here to render service because we believe in service for humanity. This is our own contribution to assist our fellow human beings who need the service more. We have been able to fill some parts of the road with laterite; we have trash bags and we are partnering with the Lagos State Waste Management Authority, LAWMA who will come and evacuate the rubbish as soon as we are through with what we are doing.  Unit leaders of the Church have identified projects that would address the needs of the areas the church is located where members would render service. In some of the projects, we are partnering with organisations, other churches and leaders of other faiths to serve Nigerians.’

There are over 88,000 members of the Church in Nigeria.  The aim of the service project is to “sweep the street, clear the drains, paint and mark roads, clean markets and other public places, including hospitals, health centres, police stations, old people’s home, motherless babies homes, among others,” said Elder Odume.

See the full article at Vanguard Metro Nigeria.

On June 25, 2009, Florida Today.com, in an article by John A. Torres, reported the following:

Starting today, hungry families struggling to provide can go to the nearest Catholic Church for a week’s supply of food.

Rik Jesse, Florida Today

More than 12,000 pounds of food collected and donated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was picked up Wednesday by volunteers with Catholic Charities of Central Florida.  The partnership is expected to ease the economic crunch for struggling families for the next three weeks.  The food is available for anyone, regardless of faith.

It’s the first time an LDS Stake has connected with the local Catholic Church to work on this type of project.  There are a large number of Catholic Churches in Brevard County that can serve as distribution centers.  The project follows a successful fund-raising campaign called Project Hunger, aimed at providing food for the poor during the summer months.  Donations are typically lower during the summer than during the winter holiday season, so it’s difficult to keep food banks stocked.  This recent donation will help provide needed food until the Project Hunger funds are allocated.  Funding for the effort was provided by donations from Latter-day Saints (Mormons) throughout Central Florida.

To read the full article, click here.

SALT LAKE CITY 27 April 2009

From coast to coast, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints joined hands with friends and neighbors to clean up and serve their communities in a far-reaching day of service.  Hundreds of thousands of volunteers stocked shelves, constructed houses and helped families in transition get their feet back on the ground.

“Helping others is valuable to the person being served but may be of even more importance to the person serving because it causes him or her to forget their own problems for just a few minutes and experience the joy of service,” said Elder Walter F. González, who oversaw volunteer efforts by the Church in the southeast area of the United States.

In Southern California Mormons staged an organized event that summoned some 40,000 volunteers to carry out service projects throughout all of Southern California, including 11 Orange County cities.  Although service is a core value in the Mormon belief system, this is the first time members of its congregations have united statewide on the same day in such a uniform fashion.  Projects included cleaning parks in Cypress, building a park in Fullerton, donating food to the Orange County Food Bank in Huntington Beach, informing residents about proper smoke detectors in Tustin and more.  Though the movement was organized by Mormon congregations, non-church volunteers were encouraged to participate (Orange County Register).

In Alabama church members in Gadsden, Anniston and Oxford assisted the Gadsden-Etowah Habitat for Humanity with houses in Adams Park Saturday as part of the Helping Hands and Linking Arms Day of Service.  About 100,000 people in 11 Southeastern states from Louisiana to Georgia and from Kentucky to Florida are participating in the service day.

According to the mission statement, the Day of Service is to link arms with churches, civic organizations and government agencies to strengthen local communities with meaningful service projects that will beautify communities, build friendships, help those in need and bolster the spirits of all.

“We’re very grateful to the Mormon community for being here,” said Steve Scharfenberg, president of the Gadsden-Etowah Habitat for Humanity. “They came with a lot of skill, a lot of tools and a lot of enthusiasm. We thank them for all of their support. We’ve accomplished a lot today” (The Gadsden Times, April 25, 2009).

In North Carolina the Washington Branch elected to participate in a restoration project for the Old Bath High School that is under construction.  Thirty six local members were on hand to scrape, paint, clean and move objects for a total of 180 man-hours. Marty Buchanan, a member of The Bath High School Preservation Corporation was amazed at the turn out and expressed her heart felt appreciation for their help.

Service projects are not a new thing for the LDS Church. They have participated in major cleanup projects after major storms like Katrina and other disasters but this is the first time the Church has timed a massive service project like this in the United States. Someone asked, “Why are you doing this?” The answer is “Service is what we do”. It was the message of the Scriptures. “What ye do unto one of the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me” (Beaufort Observer, April 25, 2009).