Skip to main content
Listen to Acton content on the go by downloading the Radio Free Acton podcast! Listen Now

AU 2025 Mobile Banner


text block float right top
button right top below
text block float right top

Does the program foster relationships between those giving and those receiving?

When applicants for help a century ago were truly alone, volunteers worked one-on-one to become, in essence, new family members. Charity volunteers a century ago usually were not assigned to massive food-dispensing tasks but were given the narrow but deep responsibility of making a difference in one life over several years. Kindness and firmness were both essential: The magazine American Hebrew in 1898 told of how one man was sunk into dependency, but a volunteer "with great patience convinced him that he must earn his living"; soon he did and regained the respect of his family and community. Similarly, a woman had become demoralized, but "for months she was worked with, now through kindness, again through discipline, until finally she began to show a desire to help herself."

Today, when an unmarried pregnant teenager is dumped by her boyfriend and abandoned by angry parents who refuse to be reconciled, she needs a haven, a room in a home with a volunteer family. When a single mom at the end of her rope cannot take care of a toddler, he should be placed quickly for adoption where a new and permanent bonding can take place, rather than rotated through a succession of foster homes. Some failed programs spend a lot of money but are too stingy in what is truly important: treating people as human beings made in God's image, not as lesser creatures.