AM Reenergizes Its Mission
By Michael Yoder, Executive Director
Throughout the entire 50 years of Associated Ministries’ existence we have lived out a distinctive and compelling mission… always focused on convening, energizing and deploying people of faith and good will to serve the vulnerable and marginalized throughout Pierce County.
Regardless of the emphasis of our mission in any given season, the motivating factor behind it has always been our passionate commitment to work collaboratively to create a community that is humane, compassionate and just.
At different points in our history we’ve served people experiencing hunger, others working to escape poverty, those threatened by violence and disease, as well as the elderly and disabled. In recent years our passion and energy has been focused on coming alongside our unhoused neighbors.
Since the early 2000s, AM has increasingly concentrated its mission around our community’s greatest crisis in a generation: homelessness. During these years we have continually strengthened our commitment and expertise as a provider of homeless services, becoming the key organization in Pierce County that manages a full spectrum of services and initiatives addressing homelessness.
With that in mind, the AM Board of Directors recently voted to sharpen the emphasis of our mission for this season; our new mission statement is: Working together toward lasting solutions to homelessness.
Unique to AM has always been our foundational commitment to do our work in partnership with faith communities and people of social good will. We remain as committed as ever to engage with local congregations to live out a shared vision of tackling the crisis of homelessness in Pierce County. Like always, we know people of faith have a crucial role to fill in serving the vulnerable, and we remain committed to working side-by-side with them to love our neighbors in need.
As we celebrate five decades of life-changing community service, we look forward with great expectation to continuing our legacy of compassionate action, sharpening our focus in this season on the crushing needs of those experiencing homelessness.
Thank you for standing with us on our continuing journey to love and serve our neighbors in need. Your support of Associated Ministries and your partnership with us is more critical than ever. Working together, we CAN find lasting solutions to homelessness!