CONCORD, Va. (AP) - Gleaning for the World, a nonprofit organization that ships material donations internationally and domestically, expects to double its volunteer force to 4,000 after opening its new Volunteer Center on Nov. 20.
“The volunteers now are right at 2,100 people that come through here,” said Gleaning founder Rev. Ron Davidson. “They are every kind of station, education, race - you name it, they’re here.”
The organization sends 125 shipments of materials per year but expects to triple that to 350 or 400 shipments per year, and needs volunteers to help sort, pack, and in some cases create the donations.
“That volume has to go through at the same amount of time, there’s no extra time,” Davidson said.
About half of the charity’s aid is offered domestically, and about half internationally, he said. The expansion is part of a capital campaign with a goal of $3.1 million.
Mike Lewis, director of sales for the Lynchburg Chamber of Commerce, said the organization, which he and Davidson said has been rated or tied first in Forbes’ list of most efficient large charities for the last five years, is a valuable addition to the area.
“It’s truly a globally impactful organization, it just happens to be based here,” Lewis said. “They’re an awesome organization.”
Gleaning officially started in 1998 by receiving unneeded supplies that businesses would have had to spend money to dispose of and getting them to places they were needed, Davidson said. Instead of the two or three shipments per year he expected, in the first 18 months he shipped 99.
About seven years ago, Gleaning for the World and Thomas Road Baptist Church began a partnership to pair the charity’s supplies with the church’s “boots on the ground,” according to church senior pastor Jonathan Falwell.
“It just was a good opportunity to join forces and allow the sweet spot of gleaning, which is to provide supplies for people in need and people who are hurting, along with our boots on the ground, so to speak, the people out there in the mission field where we could . make that kind of a positive impact,” said Falwell, who is the chairman of Gleaning’s board. Davidson continues to run the day-to-day operations.
“The most important thing (is) the fact that we have ministries happening around the world as part of our church, and Gleaning has become an integral part of what we’re doing, not only around the world but stateside as well,” he continued. “They’ve become an integral part of that apparatus where we can get things where they need to be immediately. And so it’s a great partnership.”
Donations span various categories, but Davidson said the top demands are for medical supplies, food, and personal care items. In the new volunteer facility, supplies are sorted and packed in order to be shipped to where they’re needed.
That demand has included the growing refugee crisis as well as domestic demands, he said.
Davidson advocates letting nonprofit organizations handle support for refugees, rather than a government spending plan, if they are brought into the U.S. But, he said, if Americans don’t help internationally now, they will end up with larger crises at home through a “trickle-down” effect, whether from terrorist strikes here or simply economic.
“I’m not saying bring (refugees) in or not bring them in . (but) we have a tremendous amount of need here that we need to be taking care of,” he said. “We want to make certain our local people are taken care of first, and then we expand across the United States with the disaster relief and then we keep expanding.”
He feels nonprofits, with their community connections and lower levels of regulation, can help more efficiently when needs expands exponentially.
According to United Nations data, there are 59.5 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, with 42,500 people per day forced to leave their homes. Last year’s numbers are the highest since data has been recorded as well as the greatest increase in a single year. Not all displaced persons are refugees or asylum seekers, which are different categories. More information is available at unhcr.org/556725e69.html.
“The need just continues to grow, it just does not stop,” he said. “It’s not only terrorism. It’s terrorism, it’s the breakdown of the family, it’s the economy that has not recovered since ’86. I never thought I would see the day that people that are living in nice homes that have had to cut their income in half and they’ve still got the same bills, they can’t sell their house, and their kids are hungry even though they live in a nice house.”
Major nonprofits have received maybe 10 percent of the donations from the general public and corporations that they expected recently, he said, but the domestic and international need will have consequences at home one way or another.
“The truth is that the funding to be able to save these people is simply not there. And those of us that are putting stuff on the ground, it’s been very, very difficult financially. But we have to do it. We simply have to. . It’s going to get a lot worse than it is right now. A lot worse,” Davidson said.
___
Information from: The News & Advance, https://www.newsadvance.com/
Please read our comment policy before commenting.