· Helping the Widow: There are widows and single moms here in Mesa who are struggling every day. We may not see them, they aren’t holding up signs in public asking for help, but there are some being evicted, others running out of food, or still others without transportation or money for gas. Every year we give away over $7,000 in food cards and nearly $50,000 in alms to help families through transitions and hard times.
· Helping the Poor: There are families that don’t have enough money every year to provide backpacks for school. One principal of a local elementary school in a low income housing neighborhood estimated that 80% of the students would not come to school with backpacks for a lack of money. We started the backpack drive in 2007, that year we gave away 700 backpacks full of school supplies to our community children. The backpack drive was a huge success in 2007: we decided to keep it as a community outreach. In 2008 we gave more than 1000 backpacks to our community children. We also gave away bikes and skateboards, and even offered free haircuts.