This is the place to see the face of our neighbors – those struggling with homelessness and unemployment and those working to eliminate it!

Mission and Values

We are a faith-based community partnership serving the greater Washington, DC area. We are bringing together our neighbors who face poverty, homelessness or other debilitating challenges with partner leaders, donors, volunteers and staff in a shared ministry that improves the lives of all throughout the Washington area, one next step and neighbor at a time.

Mission
We seek to –

• Empower our participants to develop capacities and address barriers they face in order to live sustainable purpose-driven lives, guiding them to set goals, and take “next steps” to meet those goals.
• Engage our partner churches and schools to share in this ministry by offering their time, talent and treasure, cultivating relationships that nurture both their missions of community outreach and the mission of the Samaritan Partnership as a whole.
• Identify the basic, systemic and unmet needs of our community that underlie poverty – and engage in organized, collective education and action to address those needs.

Values
Inspired by the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), we are called to practice –
 

• Compassion – to be neighbors and love our neighbors as God loves us, sharing one another’s suffering and joy, treating each other as we would like to be treated, with kindness, mercy, and justice.
• Transformation – to participate in one another’s growth and development in ways that encourage one another’s strengths and abilities, empowering one another to live fuller, more meaningful lives.
• Dignity – to honor one another’s inherent worth by promoting one another’s self-respect and confidence, sharing our common struggles and celebrating the transformational journey that binds us together.
• Inclusion – to work collaboratively with one another, celebrating our diversity and creating a sense of belonging, thereby achieving together what none of us can do alone.

Our Results

At Samaritan Ministry we define success one next step at a time. Each participant sets their own goals, to overcome their unique obstacles. Some achieve success in the more traditional sense, moving on to self-sustaining lives. Others require additional support and may return to us to take additional next steps. All participants are determined to make their lives better. In the end, the successes are theirs, not ours. We guide, support, encourage, and coach, but they do the heavy lifting. All successes, both large and small, are celebrated.