The Dream Center

One thing I touched upon briefly in my presentation last night was various projects that have inspired me recently. One of these is The Dream Center in LA. "The Dream Center is a volunteer-driven non-profit organization that provides social services and outreach programs designed to meet physical, spiritual, and long-term needs." It was started in 1994 by a guy who wanted to build a church in the heart of a deprived area of LA. They began to reach out to those around them providing food and clothing, and within a year had reached 500 people. Now they claim to reach 40,000 people every month. In their own words:

"We offer opportunities and resources for at-risk youth, low-income individuals, and families to reach self-sufficiency by providing basic necessities and emergency assistance.

In addition to food, clothing, job training and healthcare, we provide educational programs, parenting classes and after-school activities. We also provide residential recovery programs for men, women and teens. These programs are available free of charge to anyone in need.

Through innovative mobile programs we are able to provide critical services to multiple distressed communities. Our unique, yet effective approach to issues within the community involves the mobilization of hundreds of volunteers."

The one outreach that especially caught my attention is Adopt-a-Block (my friend Jude who is doing a very similar job to me for Destiny Church in Edinburgh first brought this to my attention, thanks Jude). The scheme sees people take a 'block' as their own, reaching out to those within that block and serving a wide variety of needs:

"Over 5,000 families are visited weekly on a total of 85 blocks. With the goal of serving, teams ask residents, “How can we help you?” Teams mow lawns, clean homes, paint over graffiti, complete minor home repairs, organize games with the children and visit with the elderly. They also provide emergency assistance, such as food and clothing; furniture is also available."

Although this is only one of many outreaches done by the Dream Center, it is the one that is resonating with me the most at the moment. I think that this is a key way of really engaging with the local community, building realtionships and serving local need, and I think it is vitally important.